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When Several Villages Are United In A Single Complete Community, Large Enough To Be Nearly Or Quite Self-sufficing, The State Comes Into Existence, Originating In The Bare Needs Of Life, And Continuing In Existence For The Sake Of A Good Life.

-Aristotle

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When Several Villages Are

Aristotle

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When Several Villages Are United In A Single Complete Community, Large Enough To Be Nearly Or Quite Self-sufficing, The State Comes Into Existence, Originating In The Bare Needs Of Life, And Continuing In Existence For The Sake Of A Good Life.

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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.

Of Cases Where A Man Is Truthful Both In Speech And Conduct When No Considerations Of Honesty Come In, From An Habitual Sincerity Of Disposition. Such Sincerity May Be Esteemed A Moral Excellence; For The Lover Of Truth, Who Is Truthful Even When Nothing Depends On It, Will A Fortiori Be Truthful When Some Interest Is At Stake, Since Having All Along Avoided Falsehood For Its Own Sake, He Will Assuredly Avoid It When It Is Morally Base; And This Is A Disposition That We Praise.

That In The Soul Which Is Called The Mind Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing.

Everything Necessarily Is Or Is Not, And Will Be Or Will Not Be; But One Cannot Divide And Say That One Or The Other Is Necessary.i Mean, For Example: It Is Necessary For There To Be Or Not To Be A Sea-battle Tomorrow; But It Is Not Necessary For A Sea-battle To Take Place Tomorrow, Or For One Not To Take Place--though It Is Necessary For One To Take Place Or Not To Take Place.

. . . The Man Is Free, We Say, Who Exists For His Own Sake And Not For Another's.

Happiness Depends On Ourselves.

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

It Is Of Itself That The Divine Thought Thinks (since It Is The Most Excellent Of Things), And Its Thinking Is A Thinking On Thinking.

It Is Absurd To Hold That A Man Ought To Be Ashamed Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With His Limbs, But Not Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With Speech And Reason, When The Use Of Rational Speech Is More Distinctive Of A Human Being Than The Use Of His Limbs.

...perhaps There Is Some Element Of Good Even In The Simple Act Of Living, So Long As The Evils Of Existence Do Not Preponderate Too Heavily.

Life In The True Sense Is Perceiving Or Thinking.

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.

For Often, When One Is Asleep, There Is Something In Consciousness Which Declares That What Then Presents Itself Is But A Dream.

They Who Have Drunk Beer, Fall On Their Back, But There Is A Peculiarity In The Effects Of The Drink Made From Barley, For They That Get Drunk On Other Intoxicating Liquors Fall On All Parts Of Their Body, They Fall On The Left Side, On The Right Side, On Their Faces, And And On Their Backs. But It Is Only Those Who Get Drunk On Beer That Fall On Their Backs With Their Faces Upward.

The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.

It Is Evident That The State Is A Creation Of Nature, And That Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

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.

Bashfulness Is An Ornament To Youth, But A Reproach To Old Age.

A Man Is His Own Best Friend; Therefore He Ought To Love Himself Best.

All Men Naturally Desire Knowledge. An Indication Of This Is Our Esteem For The Senses; For Apart From Their Use We Esteem Them For Their Own Sake, And Most Of All The Sense Of Sight. Not Only With A View To Action, But Even When No Action Is Contemplated, We Prefer Sight, Generally Speaking, To All The Other Senses. The Reason Of This Is That Of All The Senses Sight Best Helps Us To Know Things, And Reveals Many Distinctions.

When The Storytelling Goes Bad In A Society, The Result Is Decadence.

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

The Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

Men Become Builders By Building And Lyreplayers By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

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

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.

Music Has A Power Of Forming The Character, And Should Therefore Be Introduced Into The Education Of The Young.

If We State The Function Of Man To Be A Certain Kind Of Life, And This To Be An Activity Or Actions Of The Soul Implying A Rational Principle, And The Function Of A Good Man To Be The Good And Noble Performance Of These, And If Any Action Is Well Performed When It Is Performed In Accordance With The Appropriate Excellence Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, And If There Are More Than One Virtue, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

That Which Is In Locomotion Must Arrive At The Half-way Stage Before It Arrives At The Goal.

. .we Would Have To Say That Hereditary Succession Is Harmful. You May Say The King, Having Sovereign Power, Will Not In That Case Hand Over To His Children. But It Is Hard To Believe That: It Is A Difficult Achievement, Which Expects Too Much Virtue Of Human Nature.

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

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

Error Is Multiform (for Evil Is A Form Of The Unlimited, As In The Old Pythagorean Imagery, And Good Of The Limited), Whereas Success Is Possible In One Way Only (which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed - Easy To Miss The Target And Difficult To Hit It); So This Is Another Reason Why Excess And Deficiency Are A Mark Of Vice, And Observance Of The Mean A Mark Of Virtue: Goodness Is Simple, Badness Is Manifold.

Wit Is Educated Insolence.

And, Speaking Generally, Passion Seems Not To Be Amenable To Reason, But Only To Force.

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

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

In Practical Matters The End Is Not Mere Speculative Knowledge Of What Is To Be Done, But Rather The Doing Of It. It Is Not Enough To Know About Virtue, Then, But We Must Endeavor To Possess It, And To Use It, Or To Take Any Other Steps That May Make.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

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

The Brave Man, If He Be Compared With The Coward, Seems Foolhardy; And, If With The Foolhardy Man, Seems A Coward.

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.

Hence Both Women And Children Must Be Educated With An Eye To The Constitution, If Indeed It Makes Any Difference To The Virtue Of A City-state That Its Children Be Virtuous, And Its Women Too. And It Must Make A Difference, Since Half The Free Population Are Women, And From Children Come Those Who Participate In The Constitution.

The Man With A Host Of Friends Who Slaps On The Back Everybody He Meets Is Regarded As The Friend Of Nobody.

Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be.

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.

To Run Away From Trouble Is A Form Of Cowardice And, While It Is True That The Suicide Braves Death, He Does It Not For Some Noble Object But To Escape Some Ill.

That Body Is Heavier Than Another Which, In An Equal Bulk, Moves Downward Quicker.

It Must Not Be Supposed That Happiness Will Demand Many Or Great Possessions; For Self-sufficiency Does Not Depend On Excessive Abundance, Nor Does Moral Conduct, And It Is Possible To Perform Noble Deeds Even Without Being Ruler Of Land And Sea: One Can Do Virtuous Acts With Quite Moderate Resources. This May Be Clearly Observed In Experience: Private Citizens Do Not Seem To Be Less But More Given To Doing Virtuous Actions Than Princes And Potentates. It Is Sufficient Then If Moderate Resources Are Forthcoming; For A Life Of Virtuous Activity Will Be Essentially A Happy Life.

It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways...while To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way.

Cruel Is The Strife Of Brothers.

The Honors And Rewards Fall To Those Who Show Their Good Qualities In Action.

Melancholy Men Of All Others Are Most Witty, Which Causeth Many Times A Divine Ravishment, And A Kinde Of Enthusiasmus, Which Stirreth Them Up To Bee Excellent Philosophers, Poets, Prophets, Etc.

The Aim Of Education Is To Make The Pupil Like And Dislike What He Ought....the Little Human Animal Will Not At First Have The Right Responses. It Must Be Trained To Feel Pleasure, Liking, Disgust, And Hatred At Those Things Which Really Are Pleasant, Likable, Disgusting, And Hateful.

Aim Of Education

Music Imitates (represents) The Passions Or States Of The Soul, Such As Gentleness, Anger, Courage, Temperance, And Their Opposites.

We Should Aim Rather At Leveling Down Our Desires Than Leveling Up Our Means.

Every Effort Therefore Must Be Made To Perpetuate Prosperity. And, Since That Is To The Advantage Of The Rich As Well As The Poor, All That Accrues From The Revenues Should Be Collected Into A Single Fund And Distributed In Block Grants To Those In Need, If Possible In Lump Sums Large Enough For The Acquisition Of A Small Piece Of Land, But If Not, Enough To Start A Business, Or Work In Agriculture. And If That Cannot Be Done For All, The Distribution Might Be By Tribes Or Some Other Division Each In Turn.

Now The Goodness That We Have To Consider Is Clearly Human Goodness, Since The Good Or Happiness Which We Set Out To Seek Was Human Good And Human Happiness. But Human Goodness Means In Our View Excellence Of Soul, Not Excellence Of Body.

Happiness Depends Upon Ourselves.

What Is Common To Many Is Least Taken Care Of, For All Men Have Greater Regard For What Is Their Own Than What They Possess In Common With Others.

Our Problem Is Not That We Aim Too High And Miss, But That We Aim Too Low And Hit.

Female Cats Are Very Lascivious, And Make Advances To The Male.

What Is The Essence Of Life? To Serve Others And To Do Good.

But What Is Happiness? If We Consider What The Function Of Man Is, We Find That Happiness Is A Virtuous Activity Of The Soul.

What Is Happiness

All Who Have Meditated On The Art Of Governing Mankind Have Been Convinced That The Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth.

For The Lesser Evil Is Reckoned A Good In Comparison With The Greater Evil, Since The Lesser Evil Is Rather To Be Chosen Than The Greater. .

Greatness Of Soul Seems Therefore To Be As It Were A Crowning Ornament Of The Virtues; It Enhances Their Greatness, And It Cannot Exist Without Them. Hence It Is Hard To Be Truly Great-souled, For Greatness Of Soul Is Impossible Without Moral Nobility.

No Great Mind Has Ever Existed Without A Touch Of Madness.

Happiness Is Thought To Depend On Leisure; For We Are Busy That We May Have Leisure, And Make War That We May Live In Peace.

Aristotle Said: "evil Brings Men Together."

Happiness Is Activity.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

Rising Before Daylight Is Also To Be Commended; It Is A Healthy Habit, And Gives More Time For The Management Of The Household As Well As For Liberal Studies.

For Both Excessive And Insufficient Exercise Destroy One's Strength, And Both Eating And Drinking Too Much Or Too Little Destroy Health, Whereas The Right Quantity Produces, Increases And Preserves It. So It Is The Same With Temperance, Courage And The Other Virtues. This Much Then, Is Clear: In All Our Conduct It Is The Mean That Is To Be Commended.

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions, Self-controlled By Exercising Self-control, And Courageous By Performing Acts Of Courage.

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

For Imitation Is Natural To Man From His Infancy. Man Differs From Other Animals Particularly In This, That He Is Imitative, And Acquires His Rudiments Of Knowledge In This Way; Besides, The Delight In It Is Universal.

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

The First Essential Responsibility Of The State Is Control Of The Market-place: There Must Be Some Official Charged With The Duty Of Seeing That Honest Dealing And Good Order Prevail. For One Of The Well-nigh Essential Activities Of All States Is The Buying And Selling Of Goods To Meet Their Mutual Basic Needs; This Is The Quickest Way To Self-sufficiency, Which Seems To Be What Moves Men To Combine Under A Single Constitution.

The Moral Virtues, Then, Are Produced In Us Neither By Nature Nor Against Nature. Nature, Indeed, Prepares In Us The Ground For Their Reception, But Their Complete Formation Is The Product Of Habit.

Man First Begins To Philosophize When The Necessities Of Life Are Supplied.

How Many A Dispute Could Have Been Deflated Into A Single Paragraph If The Disputants Had Dared To Define Their Terms

Aristocracy Is That Form Of Government In Which Education And Discipline Are Qualifications For Suffrage And Office Holding.

Quid Quid Movetur Ab Alio Movetur"(nothing Moves Without Having Been Moved).

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

Bad People...are In Conflict With Themselves; They Desire One Thing And Will Another, Like The Incontinent Who Choose Harmful Pleasures Instead Of What They Themselves Believe To Be Good.

Teaching Is The Highest Form Of Understanding.

Character Is That Which Reveals Moral Purpose, Exposing The Class Of Things A Man Chooses And Avoids.

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.

God And Nature Create Nothing That Does Not Fulfill A Purpose

Melancholy Men, Of All Others, Are The Most Witty.

A Friend Is A Second Self, So That Our Consciousness Of A Friend's Existence...makes Us More Fully Conscious Of Our Own Existence.

Every Community Is An Association Of Some Kind And Every Community Is Established With A View To Some Good; For Everyone Always Acts In Order To Obtain That Which They Think Good. But, If All Communities Aim At Some Good, 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.

My Best Friend Is The Man Who In Wishing Me Well Wishes It For My Sake.

If The Consequences Are The Same It Is Always Better To Assume The More Limited Antecedent, Since In Things Of Nature The Limited, As Being Better, Is Sure To Be Found, Wherever Possible, Rather Than The Unlimited.

All Virtue Is Summed Up In Dealing Justly.

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.

Neither Old People Nor Sour People Seem To Make Friends Easily; For There Is Little That Is Pleasant In Them.

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

Ancient Laws Remain In Force Long After The People Have The Power To Change Them.

The Laws Are, And Ought To Be, Relative To The Constitution, And Not The Constitution To The Laws. A Constitution Is The Organization Of Offices In A State, And Determines What Is To Be The Governing Body, And What Is The End Of Each Community. But Laws Are Not To Be Confounded With The Principles Of The Constitution; They Are The Rules According To Which The Magistrates Should Administer The State, And Proceed Against Offenders.

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

Between Husband And Wife Friendship Seems To Exist By Nature, For Man Is Naturally Disposed To Pairing.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain.

Pleasure Causes Us To Do Base Actions And Pain Causes Us To Abstain From Doing Noble Actions.

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

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

For Nature By The Same Cause, Provided It Remain In The Same Condition, Always Produces The Same Effect, So That Either Coming-to-be Or Passing-away Will Always Result.

A Flatterer Is A Friend Who Is Your Inferior, Or Pretends To Be So.

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

Now What Is Just And Right Is To Be Interpreted In The Sense Of 'what Is Equal'; And That Which Is Right In The Sense Of Being Equal Is To Be Considered With Reference To The Advantage Of The State, And The Common Good Of The Citizens. And A Citizen Is One Who Shares In Governing And Being Governed. He Differs Under Different Forms Of Government, But In The Best State He Is One Who Is Able And Willing To Be Governed And To Govern With A View To The Life Of Virtue.

So It Is Naturally With The Male And The Female; The One Is Superior, The Other Inferior; The One Governs, The Other Is Governed; And The Same Rule Must Necessarily Hold Good With Respect To All Mankind.

Happiness Is Essentially Perfect; So That The Happy Man Requires In Addition The Goods Of The Body, External Goods And The Gifts Of Fortune, In Order That His Activity May Not Be Impeded Through Lack Of Them.

While Those Whom Devotion To Abstract Discussions Has Rendered Unobservant Of The Facts Are Too Ready To Dogmatize On The Basis Of A Few Observations.

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

Rhetoric Is The Counterpart Of Logic; Since Both Are Conversant With Subjects Of Such A Nature As It Is The Business Of All To Have A Certain Knowledge Of, And Which Belong To No Distinct Science. Wherefore All Men In Some Way Participate Of Both; Since All, To A Certain Extent, Attempt, As Well To Sift, As To Maintain An Argument; As Well To Defend Themselves, As To Impeach.

Virtue Also Depends On Ourselves. And So Also Does Vice. For Where We Are Free To Act We Are Also Free To Refrain From Acting, And Where We Are Able To Say No We Are Also Able To Say Yes; If Therefore We Are Responsible For Doing A Thing When To Do It Right, We Are Also Responsible For Not Doing It When Not To Do It Is Wrong, And If We Are Responsible For Rightly Not Doing A Thing, We Are Also Responsible For Wrongly Doing It.

Without Virtue It Is Difficult To Bear Gracefully The Honors Of Fortune.

It Is Evidently Equally Foolish To Accept Probable Reasoning From A Mathematician And To Demand From A Rhetorician Demonstrative Proofs.

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

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

For Man, When Perfected, Is The Best Of Animals, But, When Separated From Law And Justice, He Is The Worst Of All; Since Armed Injustice Is The More Dangerous, And He Is Equipped At Birth With The Arms Of Intelligence And With Moral Qualities Which He May Use For The Worst Ends. Wherefore, If He Have Not Virtue, He Is The Most Unholy And The Most Savage Of Animals, And The Most Full Of Lust And Gluttony. But Justice Is The Bond Of Men In States, And The Administration Of Justice, Which Is The Determination Of What Is Just, Is The Principle Of Order In Political Society.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

Money Was Intended To Be Used In Exchange, But Not To Increase At Interest. And This Term Interest, Which Means The Birth Of Money From Money, Is Applied To The Breeding Of Money Because The Offspring Resembles The Parent. Wherefore Of All Modes Of Getting Wealth This Is The Most Unnatural.

...in This Way The Structure Of The Universe- I Mean, Of The Heavens And The Earth And The Whole World- Was Arranged By One Harmony Through The Blending Of The Most Opposite Principles.

It Has Been Handed Down In Mythical Form From Earliest Times To Posterity, That There Are Gods, And That The Divine (deity) Compasses All Nature. All Beside This Has Been Added, After The Mythical Style, For The Purpose Of Persuading The Multitude, And For The Interests Of The Laws, And The Advantage Of The State.

Whereas Happiness Is The Highest Good, Being A Realization And Perfect Practice Of Virtue, Which Some Can Attain, While Others Have Little Or None Of It, The Various Qualities Of Men Are Clearly The Reason Why There Are Various Kinds Of States And Many Forms Of Government; For Different Men Seek After Happiness In Different Ways And By Different Means, And So Make For Themselves Different Modes Of Life And Forms Of Government.

The Good Man Is He For Whom, Because He Is Virtuous, The Things That Are Absolutely Good Are Good; It Is Also Plain That His Use Of These Goods Must Be Virtuous And In The Absolute Sense Good.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

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.

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.

... A Science Must Deal With A Subject And Its Properties.

Words Of Wisdom

Art Is A Higher Type Of Knowledge Than Experience.

1 Is Not Prime, By Definition. 2 Is An Unnatural Prime, 4 Is An Unnatural Prime, And 6 Is An Unnatural Prime. All Other Natural Primes Cannot Be Unnatural Primes.

In General, What Is Written Must Be Easy To Read And Easy To Speak; Which Is The Same.

Youth Should Stay Away From All Evil, Especially Things That Produce Wickedness And Ill-will.

And Yet The True Creator Is Necessity, Which Is The Mother Of Invention.

Suffering Becomes Beautiful When Anyone Bears Great Calamities With Cheerfulness, Not Through Insensibility But Through Greatness Of Mind.

Dignity Does Not Consist In Possessing Honors, But In Deserving Them.

What The Statesman Is Most Anxious To Produce Is A Certain Moral Character In His Fellow Citizens, Namely A Disposition To Virtue And The Performance Of Virtuous Actions.

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

If Every Tool, When Ordered, Or Even Of Its Own Accord, Could Do The Work That Befits It... Then There Would Be No Need Either Of Apprentices For The Master Workers Or Of Slaves For The Lords.

Nature, As We Say, Does Nothing Without Some Purpose; And For Thepurpose Of Making Mana Political Animal She Has Endowed Him Alone Among The Animals With The Power Of Reasoned Speech.

A Tragedy Is The Imitation Of An Action That Is Serious And Also, As Having Magnitude, Complete In Itself . . . With Incidents Arousing Pity And Fear, Wherewith To Accomplish Its Catharsis Of Such Emotions.

If Then, As We Say, Good Craftsmen Look To The Mean As They Work, And If Virtue, Like Nature, Is More Accurate And Better Than Any Form Of Art, It Will Follow That Virtue Has The Quality Of Hitting The Mean. I Refer To Moral Virtue [not Intellectual], For This Is Concerned With Emotions And Actions, In Which One Can Have Excess Or Deficiency Or A Due Mean.

No One Would Choose A Friendless Existence On Condition Of Having All The Other Things In The World.

Meanness Is Incurable; It Cannot Be Cured By Old Age, Or By Anything Else.

Man Is A Goal-seeking Animal. His Life Only Has Meaning If He Is Reaching Out And Striving For His Goals.

Such An Event Is Probable In Agathon's Sense Of The Word: 'it Is Probable,' He Says, 'that Many Things Should Happen Contrary To Probability.'

Nature Herself, As Has Been Often Said, Requires That We Should Be Able, Not Only To Work Well, But To Use Leisure Well; For, As I Must Repeat Once Again, The First Principle Of All Action Is Leisure. Both Are Required, But Leisure Is Better Than Occupation And Is Its End.

The Coward Calls The Brave Man Rash, The Rash Man Calls Him A Coward.

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.

For Though We Love Both The Truth And Our Friends, Piety Requires Us To Honor The Truth First.

Wicked Men Obey Out Of Fear. Good Men, Out Of Love

Music Has The Power Of Producing A Certain Effect On The Moral Character Of The Soul, And If It Has The Power To Do This, It Is Clear That The Young Must Be Directed To Music And Must Be Educated In It.

The Most Perfect Political Community Must Be Amongst Those Who Are In The Middle Rank, And Those States Are Best Instituted Wherein These Are A Larger And More Respectable Part, If Possible, Than Both The Other; Or, If That Cannot Be, At Least Than Either Of Them Separate.

It Is Clearly Better That Property Should Be Private, But The Use Of It Common; And The Special Business Of The Legislator Is To Create In Men This Benevolent Disposition.

Experience Has Shown That It Is Difficult, If Not Impossible, For A Populous State To Be Run By Good Laws.

A Right Election Can Only Be Made By Those Who Have Knowledge.

Justice Therefore Demands That No One Should Do More Ruling Than Being Ruled, But That All Should Have Their Turn.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Expect That Amount Of Exactness Which The Nature Of The Particular Subject Admits. It Is Equally Unreasonable To Accept Merely Probable Conclusions From A Mathematician And To Demand Strict Demonstration From An Orator.

Have A Definite, Clear, Practical Ideal - A Goal, An Objective.

Project Management

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.

Excellence Or Virtue Is A Settled Disposition Of The Mind That Determines Our Choice Of Actions And Emotions And Consists Essentially In Observing The Mean Relative To Us ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Which Depends On Excess And That Which Depends On Defect.

Quality Is Not An Act, It Is A Habit.

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.

For Good Is Simple, Evil Manifold.

A State Of The Soul Is Either (1) An Emotion, (2) A Capacity, Or (3) A Disposition; Virtue Therefore Must Be One Of These Three Things.

It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways . . . While To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way (for Which Reason Also One Is Easy And The Other Difficult - To Miss The Mark Easy, To Hit It Difficult).

The Greater The Length, The More Beautiful Will The Piece Be By Reason Of Its Size, Provided That The Whole Be Perspicuous.

[i]t Is Rather The Case That We Desire Something Because We Believe It To Be Good Than That We Believe A Thing To Be Good Because We Desire It. It Is The Thought That Starts Things Off.

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.

The Most Important Relationship We Can All Have Is The One You Have With Yourself, The Most Important Journey You Can Take Is One Of Self-discovery. To Know Yourself, You Must Spend Time With Yourself, You Must Not Be Afraid To Be Alone. Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

Important Relationships

Persuasion Is Effected Through The Medium Of The Hearers, When They Shall Have Been Brought To A State Of Excitement Under The Influence Of Speech; For We Do Not, When Influenced By Pain Or Joy, Or Partiality Or Dislike, Award Our Decisions In The Same Way; About Which Means Of Persuasion Alone, I Declare That The System-mongers Of The Present Day Busy Themselves.

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.

Yet The True Friend Of The People Should See That They Be Not Too Poor, For Extreme Povery Lowers The Character Of The Democracy; Measures Therefore Should Be Taken Which Will Give Them Lasting Prosperity; And As This Is Equally The Interest Of All Classes, The Proceeds Of The Public Revenues Should Be Accumulated And Distributed Among Its Poor, If Possible, In Such Quantities As May Enable Them To Purchase A Little Farm, Or, At Any Rate, Make A Beginning In Trade Or Husbandry.

There Are Three Things That Are The Motives Of Choice And Three That Are The Motives Of Avoidance; Namely, The Noble, The Expedient, And The Pleasant, And Their Opposites, The Base, The Harmful, And The Painful. Now In Respect Of All These The Good Man Is Likely To Go Right And The Bad To Go Wrong, But Especially In Respect Of Pleasure; For Pleasure Is Common To Man With The Lower Animals, And Also It Is A Concomitant Of All The Objects Of Choice, Since Both The Noble And The Expedient Appear To Us Pleasant.

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

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.

Friends Are An Aid To The Young, To Guard Them From Error; To The Elderly, To Attend To Their Wants And To Supplement Their Failing Power Of Action; To Those In The Prime Of Life, To Assist Them To Noble Deeds.

... The Good For Man Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, Or If There Are More Kinds Of Virtue Than One, In Accordance With The Best And Most Perfect Kind.

Equality Is Of Two Kinds, Numerical And Proportional; By The First I Mean Sameness Of Equality In Number Or Size; By The Second, Equality Of Ratios.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

The High-minded Man Must Care More For The Truth Than For What People Think.

One Cannot Say Of Something That It Is And That It Is Not In The Same Respect At The Same Time.

Quite Often Good Things Have Hurtful Consequences. There Are Instances Of Men Who Have Been Ruined By Their Money Or Killed By Their Courage.

Poetry Demands A Man With A Special Gift For It, Or Else One With A Touch Of Madness In Him.

When Their Adventures Do Not Succeed, However, They Run Away; But It Was The Mark Of A Brave Man To Face Things That Are, And Seem, Terrible For A Man, Because It Is Noble To Do So And Disgraceful Not To Do So.

The Man Who Is Content To Live Alone Is Either A Beast Or A God.

In The Many Forms Of Government Which Have Sprung Up There Has Always Been An Acknowledgement Of Justice And Proportionate Equality, Although Mankind Fail In Attaining Them, As Indeed I Have Already Explained. Democracy, For Example, Arises Out Of The Notion That Those Who Are Equal In Any Respect Are Equal In All Respects; Because Men Are Equally Free, They Claim To Be Absolutely Equal.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

Nor Was Civil Society Founded Merely To Preserve The Lives Of Its Members; But That They Might Live Well: For Otherwise A State Might Be Composed Of Slaves, Or The Animal Creation... Nor Is It An Alliance Mutually To Defend Each Other From Injuries, Or For A Commercial Intercourse. But Whosoever Endeavors To Establish Wholesome Laws In A State, Attends To The Virtues And Vices Of Each Individual Who Composes It; From Whence It Is Evident, That The First Care Of Him Who Would Found A City, Truly Deserving That Name, And Not Nominally So, Must Be To Have His Citizens Virtuous.

A Democracy When Put To The Strain Grows Weak, And Is Supplanted By Oligarchy.

The Intention Makes The Crime.

A Human Being Is A Naturally Political [animal].

It Is Better For A City To Be Governed By A Good Man Than By Good Laws.

With The Truth, All Given Facts Harmonize; But With What Is False, The Truth Soon Hits A Wrong Note.

The True Friend Of The People Should See That They Be Not Too Poor, For Extreme Poverty Lowers The Character Of The Democracy.

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