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We Ought To Be Able To Persuade On Opposite Sides Of A Question; As Also We Ought In The Case Of Arguing By Syllogism: Not That We Should Practice Both, For It Is Not Right To Persuade To What Is Bad; But In Order That The Bearing Of The Case May Not Escape Us, And That When Another Makes An Unfair Use Of These Reasonings, We May Be Able To Solve Them.

-Aristotle

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We Ought To Be

Aristotle

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We Ought To Be Able To Persuade On Opposite Sides Of A Question; As Also We Ought In The Case Of Arguing By Syllogism: Not That We Should Practice Both, For It Is Not Right To Persuade To What Is Bad; But In Order That The Bearing Of The Case May Not Escape Us, And That When Another Makes An Unfair Use Of These Reasonings, We May Be Able To Solve Them.

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A Man Becomes A Friend Whenever Being Loved He Loves In Return.

Anything That We Have To Learn To Do We Learn By The Actual Doing Of It; People Become Builders By Building And Instrumentalists By Playing Instruments. Similarily, We Become Just By Performing Just Acts, Temperate By Performing Temperate Ones, Brave By Performing Brave Ones.

When You Have Thrown A Stone, You Cannot Afterwards Bring It Back Again, But Nevertheless You Are Responsible For Having Taken Up The Stone And Flung It, For The Origin Of The Act Was Within You. Similarly The Unjust And Profligate Might At The Outset Have Avoided Becoming So, And Therefore They Are So Voluntarily, Although When They Have Become Unjust And Profligate It Is No Longer Open To Them Not To Be So.

Those Who Assert That The Mathematical Sciences Say Nothing Of The Beautiful Or The Good Are In Error. For These Sciences Say And Prove A Great Deal About Them; If They Do Not Expressly Mention Them, But Prove Attributes Which Are Their Results Or Definitions, It Is Not True That They Tell Us Nothing About Them. The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

Happiness, Then, Is Co-extensive With Contemplation, And The More People Contemplate, The Happier They Are; Not Incidentally, But In Virtue Of Their Contemplation, Because It Is In Itself Precious. Thus Happiness Is A Form Of Contemplation.

For Knowing Is Spoken Of In Three Ways: It May Be Either Universal Knowledge Or Knowledge Proper To The Matter In Hand Or Actualising Such Knowledge; Consequently Three Kinds Of Error Also Are Possible.

Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint Are A Matter Of Extremes As Compared With The Character Of The Mass Of Mankind; The Restrained Man Shows More And The Unrestrained Man Less Steadfastness Than Most Men Are Capable Of.

Art Takes Nature As Its Model.

In Order To Be Effective You Need Not Only Virtue But Also Mental Strength.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

All Communication Must Lead To Change

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

Some Believe It To Be Just Friends Wanting, As If To Be Healthy Enough To Wish Health.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

Friendship Is A Thing Most Necessary To Life, Since Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though Possessed Of All Other Advantages.

Philosophy Begins With Wonder.

The Line Has Magnitude In One Way, The Plane In Two Ways, And The Solid In Three Ways, And Beyond These There Is No Other Magnitude Because The Three Are All.

The Perversions Are As Follows: Of Royalty, Tyranny; Of Aristocracy, Oligarchy; Of Constitutional Government, Democracy.

I Call That Law Universal, Which Is Conformable Merely To Dictates Of Nature; For There Does Exist Naturally An Universal Sense Of Right And Wrong, Which, In A Certain Degree, All Intuitively Divine, Even Should No Intercourse With Each Other, Nor Any Compact Have Existed.

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

Happiness May Be Defined As Good Fortune Joined To Virtue, Or A Independence, Or As A Life That Is Both Agreeable And Secure.

Good Moral Character Is Not Something That We Can Achieve On Our Own. We Need A Culture That Supports The Conditions Under Which Self-love And Friendship Flourish.

When We Look At The Matter From Another Point Of View, Great Caution Would Seem To Be Required. For The Habit Of Lightly Changing The Laws Is An Evil, And, When The Advantage Is Small, Some Errors Both Of Lawgivers And Rulers Had Better Be Left; The Citizen Will Not Gain So Much By Making The Change As He Will Lose By The Habit Of Disobedience.

We Praise A Man Who Feels Angry On The Right Grounds And Against The Right Persons And Also In The Right Manner At The Right Moment And For The Right Length Of Time.

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

Good Has Two Meanings: It Means That Which Is Good Absolutely And That Which Is Good For Somebody.

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

The Saying Of Protagoras Is Like The Views We Have Mentioned; He Said That Man Is The Measure Of All Things, Meaning Simply That That Which Seems To Each Man Assuredly Is. If This Is So, It Follows That The Same Thing Both Is And Is Not, And Is Bad And Good, And That The Contents Of All Other Opposite Statements Are True, Because Often A Particular Thing Appears Beautiful To Some And Ugly To Others, And That Which Appears To Each Man Is The Measure

The Majority Of Mankind Would Seem To Be Beguiled Into Error By Pleasure, Which, Not Being Really A Good, Yet Seems To Be So. So That They Indiscriminately Choose As Good Whatsoever Gives Them Pleasure, While They Avoid All Pain Alike As Evil.

People Generally Despise Where They Flatter.

It Is Also In The Interests Of A Tyrant To Make His Subjects Poo...the People Are So Occupied With Their Daily Tasks That They Have No Time For Plotting.

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

Men Pay Most Attention To What Is Their Own: They Care Less For What Is Common; Or, At Any Rate, They Care For It Only To The Extent To Which Each Is Individually Concerned.

The Goodness Or Badness, Justice Or Injustice, Of Laws Varies Of Necessity With The Constitution Of States. This, However, Is Clear, That The Laws Must Be Adapted To The Constitutions. But If So, True Forms Of Government Will Of Necessity Have Just Laws, And Perverted Forms Of Government Will Have Unjust Laws.

He Who Is By Nature Not His Own But Another's Man Is By Nature A Slave.

Nature Creates Nothing Without A Purpose.

If Men Are Given Food, But No Chastisement Nor Any Work, They Become Insolent.

The Truly Good And Wise Man Will Bear All Kinds Of Fortune In A Seemly Way, And Will Always Act In The Noblest Manner That The Circumstances Allow.

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

For As The Eyes Of Bats Are To The Blaze Of Day, So Is The Reason In Our Soul To The Things Which Are By Nature Most Evident Of All.

If, Then, There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake (everything Else Being Desired For The Sake Of This), And If We Do Not Choose Everything For The Sake Of Something Else (for At That Rate The Process Would Go On To Infinity, So That Our Desire Would Be Empty And Vain), Clearly This Must Be The Good And The Chief Good.

The Young Are Permanently In A State Resembling Intoxication.

We Ought, So Far As It Lies Within Our Power, To Aspire To Immortality, And Do All That We Can To Live In Conformity With The Highest That Is Within Us; For Even If It Is Small In Quantity, In Power And Preciousness, It Far Excels All The Rest.

The Generality Of Men Are Naturally Apt To Be Swayed By Fear Rather Than Reverence, And To Refrain From Evil Rather Because Of The Punishment That It Brings Than Because Of Its Own Foulness.

Where Your Talents And The Needs Of The World Cross; There Lies Your Vocation.

Music Directly Represents The Passions Of The Soul. If One Listens To The Wrong Kind Of Music, He Will Become The Wrong Kind Of Person.

Reason Is A Light That God Has Kindled In The Soul.

Education Is An Ornament In Prosperity And A Refuge In Adversity.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

There Is Honor In Being A Dog.

Happiness Does Not Lie In Amusement; It Would Be Strange If One Were To Take Trouble And Suffer Hardship All One's Life In Order To Amuse Oneself.

Wretched, Ephemeral Race, Children Of Chance And Tribulation, Why Do You Force Me To Tell You The Very Thing Which It Would Be Most Profitable For You Not To Hear? The Very Best Thing Is Utterly Beyond Your Reach: Not To Have Been Born, Not To Be, To Be Nothing. However, The Second Best Thing For You Is: To Die Soon.

Metaphor Is Halfway Between The Unintelligible And The Commonplace.

Between Friends There Is No Need For Justice, But People Who Are Just Still Need The Quality Of Friendship; And Indeed Friendliness Is Considered To Be Justice In The Fullest Sense.

Speech Is The Representation Of The Mind, And Writing Is The Representation Of Speech.

Life Is Full Of Chances And Changes, And The Most Prosperous Of Men May In The Evening Of His Days Meet With Great Misfortunes.

The Heart Is The Perfection Of The Whole Organism. Therefore The Principles Of The Power Of Perception And The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Must Lie In The Heart.

Some Men Turn Every Quality Or Art Into A Means Of Making Money; This They Conceive To Be The End, And To The Promotion Of The End All Things Must Contribute.

There Also Appears To Be Another Element In The Soul, Which, Though Irrational, Yet In A Manner Participates In Rational Principle.

Think As Wise Men Do, But Speak As The Common People Do.

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered. As In Other Sciences, So In Politics, It Is Impossible That All Things Should Be Precisely Set Down In Writing; For Enactments Must Be Universal, But Actions Are Concerned With Particulars. Hence We Infer That Sometimes And In Certain Cases Laws May Be Changed.

We Maintain, And Have Said In The Ethics, If The Arguments There Adduced Are Of Any Value, That Happiness Is The Realization And Perfect Exercise Of Virtue, And This Not Conditional, But Absolute. And I Used The Term 'conditional' To Express That Which Is Indispensable, And 'absolute' To Express That Which Is Good In Itself.

Since The Whole City Has One End, It Is Manifest That Education Should Be One And The Same For All, And That It Should Be Public, And Not Private - Not As At Present, When Every One Looks After His Own Children Separately, And Gives Them Separate Instruction Of The Sort Which He Thinks Best; The Training In Things Which Are Of Common Interest Should Be The Same For All. Neither Must We Suppose That Any One Of The Citizens Belongs To Himself, For They All Belong To The State, And Are Each Of Them A Part Of The State, And The Care Of Each Part Is Inseparable From The Care Of The Whole.

There Is A Foolish Corner In The Brain Of The Wisest Man.

It Is The Activity Of The Intellect That Constitutes Complete Human Happiness - Provided It Be Granted A Complete Span Of Life, For Nothing That Belongs To Happiness Can Be Incomplete.

Man's Best Friend Is One Who Wishes Well To The Object Of His Wish For His Sake, Even If No One Is To Know Of It.

For It Is Not True, As Some Treatise-mongers Lay Down In Their Systems, Of The Probity Of The Speaker, That It Contributes Nothing To Persuasion; But Moral Character Nearly, I May Say, Carries With It The Most Sovereign Efficacy In Making Credible.

Where Perception Is, There Also Are Pain And Pleasure, And Where These Are, There, Of Necessity, Is Desire.

Speeches Are Like Babies-easy To Conceive But Hard To Deliver.

To Give A Satisfactory Decision As To The Truth It Is Necessary To Be Rather An Arbitrator Than A Party To The Dispute.

One Swallow Does Not Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day.

The Two Qualities Which Chiefly Inspire Regard And Affection Are That A Thing Is Your Own And That It Is Your Only One.

Tyrants Preserve Themselves By Sowing Fear And Mistrust Among The Citizens By Means Of Spies, By Distracting Them With Foreign Wars, By Eliminating Men Of Spirit Who Might Lead A Revolution, By Humbling The People, And Making Them Incapable Of Decisive Action.

The Male Has More Teeth Than The Female In Mankind, And Sheep And Goats, And Swine. This Has Not Been Observed In Other Animals. Those Persons Which Have The Greatest Number Of Teeth Are The Longest Lived; Those Which Have Them Widely Separated, Smaller, And More Scattered, Are Generally More Short Lived.

It Is Not Easy For A Person To Do Any Great Harm When His Tenure Of Office Is Short, Whereas Long Possession Begets Tyranny.

In The First Place, Then, Men Should Guard Against The Beginning Of Change, And In The Second Place They Should Not Rely Upon The Political Devices Of Which I Have Already Spoken Invented Only To Deceive The People, For They Are Proved By Experience To Be Useless.

Excellence Is Not An Art. It Is The Habit Of Practice.

It Is No Part Of A Physician's Business To Use Either Persuasion Or Compulsion Upon The Patients.

He Who Sees Things Grow From The Beginning Will Have The Best View Of Them.

Of Ill-temper There Are Three Kinds: Irascibility, Bitterness, Sullenness. It Belongs To The Ill-tempered Man To Be Unable To Bear Either Small Slights Or Defeats But To Be Given To Retaliation And Revenge, And Easily Moved To Anger By Any Chance Deed Or Word. Ill-temper Is Accompanied By Excitability Of Character, Instability, Bitter Speech, And Liability To Take Offence At Trifles And To Feel These Feelings Quickly And On Slight Occasions.

No One Praises Happiness As One Praises Justice, But We Call It A 'blessing,' Deeming It Something Higher And More Divine Than Things We Praise.

Prosperity Makes Friends And Adversity Tries Them. A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies

Worms Are The Intestines Of The Earth.

The Body Is At Its Best Between The Ages Of Thirty And Thirty-five.

Since The Things We Do Determine The Character Of Life, No Blessed Person Can Become Unhappy. For He Will Never Do Those Things Which Are Hateful And Petty.

A Friend Is Another I.

He Who Is To Be A Good Ruler Must Have First Been Ruled.

Irrational Passions Would Seem To Be As Much A Part Of Human Nature As Is Reason.

There Is An Ideal Of Excellence For Any Particular Craft Or Occupation; Similarly There Must Be An Excellent That We Can Achieve As Human Beings. That Is, We Can Live Our Lives As A Whole In Such A Way That They Can Be Judged Not Just As Excellent In This Respect Or In That Occupation, But As Excellent, Period. Only When We Develop Our Truly Human Capacities Sufficiently To Achieve This Human Excellent Will We Have Lives Blessed With Happiness.

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

As The Pleasures Of The Body Are The Ones Which We Most Often Meet With, And As All Men Are Capable Of These, These Have Usurped The Family Title; And Some Men Think These Are The Only Pleasures That Exist, Because They Are The Only Ones Which They Know.

Men Create Gods After Their Own Image, Not Only With Regard To Their Form But With Regard To Their Mode Of Life.

Accordingly, The Poet Should Prefer Probable Impossibilities To Improbable Possibilities. The Tragic Plot Must Not Be Composed Of Irrational Parts.

We Ought To Be Able To Persuade On Opposite Sides Of A Question; As Also We Ought In The Case Of Arguing By Syllogism: Not That We Should Practice Both, For It Is Not Right To Persuade To What Is Bad; But In Order That The Bearing Of The Case May Not Escape Us, And That When Another Makes An Unfair Use Of These Reasonings, We May Be Able To Solve Them.

Plato Is Dear To Me, But Dearer Still Is Truth.

Anyone Who Has No Need Of Anybody But Himself Is Either A Beast Or A God.

I Will Not Allow The Athenians To Sin Twice Against Philosophy.

Politicians Also Have No Leisure, Because They Are Always Aiming At Something Beyond Political Life Itself, Power And Glory, Or Happiness.

Yellow-colored Objects Appear To Be Gold

A Bad Man Can Do A Million Times More Harm Than A Beast.

There Are, Then, These Three Means Of Effecting Persuasion. The Man Who Is To Be In Command Of Them Must, It Is Clear, Be Able (1) To Reason Logically, (2) To Understand Human Character And Goodness In Their Various Forms, And (3) To Understand The Emotions--that Is, To Name Them And Describe Them, To Know Their Causes And The Way In Which They Are Excited.

Most Men Appear To Think That The Art Of Despotic Government Is Statesmanship, And What Men Affirm To Be Unjust And Inexpedient In Their Own Case They Are Not Ashamed Of Practicing Towards Others; They Demand Just Rule For Themselves, But Where Other Men Are Concerned They Care Nothing About It. Such Behavior Is Irrational; Unless The One Party Is, And The Other Is Not, Born To Serve, In Which Case Men Have A Right To Command, Not Indeed All Their Fellows, But Only Those Who Are Intended To Be Subjects; Just As We Ought Not To Hunt Mankind, Whether For Food Or Sacrifice . .

Friends Hold A Mirror Up To Each Other; Through That Mirror They Can See Each Other In Ways That Would Not Otherwise Be Accessible To Them, And It Is This Mirroring That Helps Them Improve Themselves As Persons.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do... Excellence, Therefore, Isn't Just An Act, But A Habit And Life Isn't Just A Series Of Events, But An Ongoing Process Of Self-definition.

If They Do Not Share Equally Enjoyments And Toils, Those Who Labor Much And Get Little Will Necessarily Complain Of Those Who Labor Little And Receive Or Consume Much. But Indeed There Is Always A Difficulty In Men Living Together And Having All Human Relations In Common, But Especially In Their Having Common Property.

All Friendly Feelings Toward Others Come From The Friendly Feelings A Person Has For Himself.

It Is Unbecoming For Young Men To Utter Maxims.

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

Madness Is Badness Of Spirit, When One Seeks Profit From All Sources.

The Happy Life Is Regarded As A Life In Conformity With Virtue. It Is A Life Which Involves Effort And Is Not Spent In Amusement.

Even That Some People Try Deceived Me Many Times ... I Will Not Fail To Believe That Somewhere, Someone Deserves My Trust.

Moral Excellence Comes About As A Result Of Habit. We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though He Had All Other Goods.

He Who Confers A Benefit On Anyone Loves Him Better Than He Is Beloved.

The Blood Of A Goat Will Shatter A Diamond.

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

Not Every Action Or Emotion However Admits Of The Observance Of A Due Mean. Indeed The Very Names Of Some Directly Imply Evil, For Instance Malice, Shamelessness, Envy, And, Of Actions, Adultery, Theft, Murder. All These And Similar Actions And Feelings Are Blamed As Being Bad In Themselves; It Is Not The Excess Or Deficiency Of Them That We Blame. It Is Impossible Therefore Ever To Go Right In Regard To Them - One Must Always Be Wrong.

The True Nature Of Anything Is What It Becomes At Its Highest.

Nature Does Nothing Without A Purpose. In Children May Be Observed The Traces And Seeds Of What Will One Day Be Settled Psychological Habits, Though Psychologically A Child Hardly Differs For The Time Being From An Animal.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

Man Is The Metre Of All Things, The Hand Is The Instrument Of Instruments, And The Mind Is The Form Of Forms.

It Is Not The Possessions But The Desires Of Mankind Which Require To Be Equalized.

That Which Is Common To The Greatest Number Has The Least Care Bestowed Upon It. Every One Thinks Chiefly Of His Own, Hardly At All Of The Common Interest; And Only When He Is Himself Concerned As An Individual. For Besides Other Considerations, Everybody Is More Inclined To Neglect The Duty Which He Expects Another To Fulfill.

Property Should Be In A General Sense Common, But As A General Rule Private... In Well-ordered States, Although Every Man Has His Own Property, Some Things He Will Place At The Disposal Of His Friends, While Of Others He Shares The Use Of Them.

It Makes No Difference Whether A Good Man Has Defrauded A Bad Man, Or A Bad Man Defrauded A Good Man, Or Whether A Good Or Bad Man Has Committed Adultery: The Law Can Look Only To The Amount Of Damage Done.

I Have Gained This From Philosophy: That I Do Without Being Commanded What Others Do Only From Fear Of The Law.

... The Science We Are After Is Not About Mathematicals Either None Of Them, You See, Is Separable.

Words Of Wisdom

It Is Not Easy To Determine The Nature Of Music, Or Why Any One Should Have A Knowledge Of It.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

Actual Knowledge Is Identical With Its Object: In The Individual, Potential Knowledge Is In Time Prior To Actual Knowledge, But In The Universe As A Whole It Is Not Prior Even In Time. Mind Is Not At One Time Knowing And At Another Not. When Mind Is Set Free From Its Present Conditions It Appears As Just What It Is And Nothing More: This Alone Is Immortal And Eternal (we Do Not, However, Remember Its Former Activity Because, While Mind In This Sense Is Impassible, Mind As Passive Is Destructible), And Without It Nothing Thinks.

[prudence] Is The Virtue Of That Part Of The Intellect [the Calculative] To Which It Belongs; And . . . Our Choice Of Actions Will Not Be Right Without Prudence Any More Than Without Moral Virtue, Since, While Moral Virtue Enables Us To Achieve The End, Prudence Makes Us Adopt The Right Means To The End.

Happiness, Then, Is Found To Be Something Perfect And Self-sufficient, Being The End To Which Our Actions Are Directed.

Definition Of Tragedy: A Hero Destroyed By The Excess Of His Virtues

And Of Course, The Brain Is Not Responsible For Any Of The Sensations At All. The Correct View Is That The Seat And Source Of Sensation Is The Region Of The Heart.

The Things Best To Know Are First Principles And Causes, But These Things Are Perhaps The Most Difficult For Men To Grasp, For They Are Farthest Removed From The Senses.

Misfortune Shows Those Who Are Not Really Friends.

One Has No Friend Who Has Many Friends.

Once More: There Are Three Offices According To Whose Directions The Highest Magistrates Are Chosen In Certain States - Guardians Of The Law, Probuli, Councilors - Of These, The Guardians Of The Law Are An Aristocratical, The Probuli An Oligarchical, The Council A Democratical Institution.

Happiness, Whether Consisting In Pleasure Or Virtue, Or Both, Is More Often Found With Those Who Are Highly Cultivated In Their Minds And In Their Character, And Have Only A Moderate Share Of External Goods, Than Among Those Who Possess External Goods To A Useless Extent But Are Deficient In Higher Qualities.

The Best Way To Avoid Envy Is To Deserve The Success You Get.

Talent Is Culture With Insolence.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

Comedy Has Had No History, Because It Was Not At First Treated Seriously.

Young People Are In A Condition Like Permanent Intoxication, Because Life Is Sweet And They Are Growing.

The Proof That The State Is A Creation Of Nature And Prior To The Individual Is That The Individual, When Isolated, Is Not Self-sufficing.

Thus Then A Single Harmony Orders The Composition Of The Whole...by The Mingling Of The Most Contrary Principles.

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

The Business Of Every Art Is To Bring Something Into Existence, And The Practice Of An Art Involves The Study Of How To Bring Into Existence Something Which Is Capable Of Having Such An Existence And Has Its Efficient Cause In The Maker And Not In Itself.

If Happiness, Then, Is Activity Expressing Virtue, It Is Reasonable For It To Express The Supreme Virtue, Which Will Be The Virtueof The Best Thing.

But If Nothing But Soul, Or In Soul Mind, Is Qualified To Count, It Is Impossible For There To Be Time Unless There Is Soul, But Only That Of Which Time Is An Attribute, I.e. If Change Can Exist Without Soul.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because Truth And Justice Are In Their Nature Stronger Than Their Opposites; So That If Decisions Be Made, Not In Conformity To The Rule Of Propriety, It Must Have Been That They Have Been Got The Better Of Through Fault Of The Advocates Themselves: And This Is Deserving Reprehension.

The Worst Thing About Slavery Is That The Slaves Eventually Get To Like It.

And So Long As They Were At War, Their Power Was Preserved, But When They Had Attained Empire They Fell, For Of The Arts Of Peace They Knew Nothing, And Had Never Engaged In Any Employment Higher Than War.

There Is Always Something New Coming Out Of Africa.

The Aim Of Art Is To Represent Not The Outward Appearance Of Things, But Their Inward Significance.

All Flatterers Are Mercenary, And All Low-minded Men Are Flatterers.

In Painting, The Most Brilliant Colors, Spread At Random And Without Design, Will Give Far Less Pleasure Than The Simplest Outline Of A Figure.

The Ultimate End...is Not Knowledge, But Action. To Be Half Right On Time May Be More Important Than To Obtain The Whole Truth Too Late.

The Difference Between A Learned Man And An Ignorant One Is The Same As That Between A Living Man And A Corpse.

The Soul Is The Cause Or Source Of The Living Body. The Terms Cause And Source Have Many Senses. But The Soul Is The Cause Of Its Body Alike In All Three Senses Which We Explicitly Recognize. It Is (a) The Source Or Origin Of Movement, It Is (b) The End, It Is (c) The Essence Of The Whole Living Body.

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

Everything Is Done With A Goal, And That Goal Is "good."

Meaning Of Life

It Is Impossible, Or Not Easy, To Alter By Argument What Has Long Been Absorbed By Habit

The Sun, Moving As It Does, Sets Up Processes Of Change And Becoming And Decay, And By Its Agency The Finest And Sweetest Water Is Every Day Carried Up And Is Dissolved Into Vapour And Rises To The Upper Region, Where It Is Condensed Again By The Cold And So Returns To The Earth. This, As We Have Said Before, Is The Regular Course Of Nature.

The State Or Political Community, Which Is The Highest Of All, And Which Embraces All The Rest, Aims At Good In A Greater Degree Than Any Other, And At The Highest Good.

Of The Irrational Part Of The Soul Again One Division Appears To Be Common To All Living Things, And Of A Vegetative Nature.

A Poet's Object Is Not To Tell What Actually Happened But What Could Or Would Happen Either Probably Or Inevitably.... For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Scientific And Serious Than History, Because Poetry Tends To Give General Truths While History Gives Particular Facts.

A Tragedy Is A Representation Of An Action That Is Whole And Complete And Of A Certain Magnitude. A Whole Is What Has A Beginning And Middle And End.

But The Virtues We Get By First Exercising Them, As Also Happens In The Case Of The Arts As Well. For The Things We Have To Learn Before We Can Do Them, We Learn By Doing Them, E.g. Men Become Builders By Building And Lyre Players By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

What It Lies In Our Power To Do, It Lies In Our Power Not To Do.

By 'life,' We Mean A Thing That Can Nourish Itself And Grow And Decay.

Now Property Is Part Of A Household, And The Acquisition Of Property Part Of Household-management; For Neither Life Itself Nor The Good Life Is Possible Without A Certain Minimum Supply Of The Necessities.

Virtue Is The Golden Mean Between Two Vices, The One Of Excess And The Other Of Deficiency.

Philosophy Is The Science Which Considers Truth.

A True Disciple Shows His Appreciation By Reaching Further Than His Teacher.

Laws, When Good, Should Be Supreme; And That The Magistrate Or Magistrates Should Regulate Those Matters Only On Which The Laws Are Unable To Speak With Precision Owing To The Difficulty Of Any General Principle Embracing All Particulars.

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor. This Alone Cannot Be Imparted By Another; It Is The Mark Of Genius, For To Make Good Metaphors Implies An Eye For Resemblances.

We Have No Evidence As Yet About Mind Or The Power To Think; It Seems To Be A Widely Different Kind Of Soul, Differing As What Is Eternal From What Is Perishable; It Alone Is Capable Of Existence In Isolation From All Other Psychic Powers.

Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of Soul Exhibiting Excellence, And If There Is More Than One Sort Of Excellence, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.foroneswallowdoesnot Makea Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

The Young Are Heated By Nature As Drunken Men By Wine.

As Our Acts Vary, Our Habits Will Follow In Their Course.

The Unfortunate Need People Who Will Be Kind To Them; The Prosperous Need People To Be Kind To.

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge. The Young They Keep Out Of Mischief; To The Old They Are A Comfort And Aid In Their Weakness, And Those In The Prime Of Life They Incite To Noble Deeds.

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Anyone Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man. But The Principle Of Responsibility Secures That Which Is The Greatest Good In States; The Right Persons Rule And Are Prevented From Doing Wrong, And The People Have Their Due. It Is Evident That This Is The Best Kind Of Democracy, And Why? Because The People Are Drawn From A Certain Class.

Knowing What Is Right Does Not Make A Sagacious Man.

Those Who Are Not Angry At The Things They Should Be Angry At Are Thought To Be Fools, And So Are Those Who Are Not Angry In The Right Way, At The Right Time, Or With The Right Persons.

Salt Water When It Turns Into Vapour Becomes Sweet, And The Vapour Does Not Form Salt Water When It Condenses Again. This I Know By Experiment. The Same Thing Is True In Every Case Of The Kind: Wine And All Fluids That Evaporate And Condense Back Into A Liquid State Become Water. They All Are Water Modified By A Certain Admixture, The Nature Of Which Determines Their Flavour.

Because The Rich Are Generally Few In Number, While The Poor Are Many, They Appear To Be Antagonistic, And As The One Or The Other Prevails They Form The Government. Hence Arises The Common Opinion That There Are Two Kinds Of Government - Democracy And Oligarchy.

That Which Is Excellent Endures.

A Democracy Exists Whenever Those Who Are Free And Are Not Well-off, Being In The Majority, Are In Sovereign Control Of Government, An Oligarchy When Control Lies With The Rich And Better-born, These Being Few.

If, Therefore, There Is Any One Superior In Virtue And In The Power Of Performing The Best Actions, Him We Ought To Follow And Obey, But He Must Have The Capacity For Action As Well As Virtue.

That Which Most Contributes To The Permanence Of Constitutions Is The Adaptation Of Education To The Form Of Government, And Yet In Our Own Day This Principle Is Universally Neglected. The Best Laws, Though Sanctioned By Every Citizen Of The State, Will Be Of No Avail Unless The Young Are Trained By Habit And Education In The Spirit Of The Constitution.

...virtue Is Not Merely A State In Conformity With The Right Principle, But One That Implies The Right Principle; And The Right Principle In Moral Conduct Is Prudence.

Some Vices Miss What Is Right Because They Are Deficient, Others Because They Are Excessive, In Feelings Or In Actions, While Virtue Finds And Chooses The Mean.

The Line Between Lawful And Unlawful Abortion Will Be Marked By The Fact Of Having Sensation And Being Alive.

The Best Friend Is He That, When He Wishes A Person's Good, Wishes It For That Person's Own Sake.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

The Wise Man Does Not Expose Himself Needlessly To Danger, Since There Are Few Things For Which He Cares Sufficiently; But He Is Willing, In Great Crises, To Give Even His Life - Knowing That Under Certain Conditions It Is Not Worthwhile To Live.

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

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Neville Marriner

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