Background Image

...

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.

-Aristotle

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

When Their Adventures Do

Aristotle

...

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.

Views: 53624

Topic

More From Aristotle

Property Should Be In A Certain Sense Common, But, As A General Rule, Private; For, When Every One Has A Distinct Interest, Men Will Not Complain Of One Another, And They Will Make More Progress, Because Every One Will Be Attending To His Own Business.

For That Which Has Become Habitual, Becomes As It Were Natural.

Anger Is Always Concerned With Individuals, ... Whereas Hatred Is Directed Also Against Classes: We All Hate Any Thief And Any Informer. Moreover, Anger Can Be Cured By Time; But Hatred Cannot. The One Aims At Giving Pain To Its Object, The Other At Doing Him Harm; The Angry Man Wants His Victim To Feel; The Hater Does Not Mind Whether They Feel Or Not.

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

For Those Who Possess And Can Wield Arms Are In A Position To Decide Whether The Constitution Is To Continue Or Not

Also, That Which Is Desirable In Itself Is More Desirable Than What Is Desirable Per Accidens.

I Seek To Bring Forth What You Almost Already Know.

He Who Cannot See The Truth For Himself, Nor, Hearing It From Others, Store It Away In His Mind, That Man Is Utterly Worthless.

Greed Has No Boundaries

The Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

It Is Clear That Those Constitutions Which Aim At The Common Good Are Right, As Being In Accord With Absolute Justice; While Those Which Aim Only At The Good Of The Rulers Are Wrong.

The Ideal Man Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy.

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

The Virtue As The Art Consecrates Itself Constantly To What's Difficult To Do, And The Harder The Task, The Shinier The Success.

A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies.

Now All Orators Effect Their Demonstrative Proofs By Allegation Either Of Enthymems Or Examples, And, Besides These, In No Other Way Whatever.

Happiness Is An Expression Of The Soul In Considered Actions.

The Democrats Think That As They Are Equal They Ought To Be Equal In All Things.

And This Activity Alone Would Seem To Be Loved For Its Own Sake; For Nothing Arises From It Apart From The Contemplating, While From Practical Activities We Gain More Or Less Apart From The Action. And 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.

Wickedness Is Nourished By Lust.

There Are Still Two Forms Besides Democracy And Oligarchy; One Of Them Is Universally Recognized And Included Among The Four Principal Forms Of Government, Which Are Said To Be (1) Monarchy, (2) Oligarchy, (3) Democracy, And (4) The So-called Aristocracy Or Government Of The Best. But There Is Also A Fifth, Which Retains The Generic Name Of Polity Or Constitutional Government.

The Best Way To Teach Morality Is To Make It A Habit With Children.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

Women Should Marry When They Are About Eighteen Years Of Age, And Men At Seven And Thirty; Then They Are In The Prime Of Life, And The Decline In The Powers Of Both Will Coincide.

The Good Citizen Need Not Of Necessity Possess The Virtue Which Makes A Good Man.

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.

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.

While Fiction Is Often Impossible, It Should Not Be Implausible.

Friendship Also Seems To Be The Bond That Hold Communities Together.

The Blood Of A Goat Will Shatter A Diamond.

Since The Branch Of Philosophy On Which We Are At Present Engaged Differs From The Others In Not Being A Subject Of Merely Intellectual Interest — I Mean We Are Not Concerned To Know What Goodness Essentially Is, But How We Are To Become Good Men, For This Alone Gives The Study Its Practical Value — We Must Apply Our Minds To The Solution Of The Problems Of Conduct.

Those Who Have The Command Of The Arms In A Country Are Masters Of The State, And Have It In Their Power To Make What Revolutions They Please. [thus,] There Is No End To Observations On The Difference Between The Measures Likely To Be Pursued By A Minister Backed By A Standing Army, And Those Of A Court Awed By The Fear Of An Armed People.

There Is Honor In Being A Dog.

Law Is Mind Without Reason.

Any Change Of Government Which Has To Be Introduced Should Be One Which Men, Starting From Their Existing Constitutions, Will Be Both Willing And Able To Adopt, Since There Is Quite As Much Trouble In The Reformation Of An Old Constitution As In The Establishment Of A New One, Just As To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn.

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Of Men But Of A Life, An Action

Emotions Of Any Kind Can Be Evoked By Melody And Rhythm; Therefore Music Has The Power To Form Character.

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

Just As At The Olympic Games It Is Not The Handsomest Or Strongest Men Who Are Crowned With Victory But The Successful Competitors, So In Life It Is Those Who Act Rightly Who Carry Off All The Prizes And Rewards.

Yes The Truth Is That Men's Ambition And Their Desire To Make Money Are Among The Most Frequent Causes Of Deliberate Acts Of Injustice.

All Teaching And All Intellectual Learning Come About From Already Existing Knowledge.

Character Is Made By Many Acts; It May Be Lost By A Single One.

Learning Is Not Child's Play; We Cannot Learn Without Pain.

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.

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

In The Human Species At All Events There Is A Great Diversity Of Pleasures. The Same Things Delight Some Men And Annoy Others, And Things Painful And Disgusting To Some Are Pleasant And Attractive To Others.

It Concerns Us To Know The Purposes We Seek In Life, For Then, Like Archers Aiming At A Definite Mark, We Shall Be More Likely To Attain What We Want.

Emotions Of Any Kind Are Produced By Melody And Rhythm; Therefore By Music A Man Becomes Accustomed To Feeling The Right Emotions; Music Has Thus The Power To Form Character, And The Various Kinds Of Music Based On Various Modes May Be Distinguished By Their Effects On Character.

To Learn Is A Natural Pleasure, Not Confined To Philosophers, But Common To All Men.

That In The Soul Which Is Called Mind (by Mind I Mean That Whereby The Soul Thinks And Judges) Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing. For This Reason It Cannot Reasonably Be Regarded As Blended With The Body

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

The Arousing Of Prejudice, Pity, Anger, And Similar Emotions Has Nothing To Do With The Essential Facts, But Is Merely A Personal Appeal To The Man Who Is Judging The Case.

He Overcomes A Stout Enemy Who Overcomes His Own Anger.

Happiness Is The Meaning And The Purpose Of Life, The Whole Aim And End Of Human Existence.

Boundaries Don't Protect Rivers, People Do.

The Good Of Man Is The Active Exercise Of His Soul's Faculties. This Exercise Must Occupy A Complete Lifetime. One Swallow Does Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day. Excellence Is A Habit, Not An Event.

Those Who Have Been Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, And The Arts Have All Had Tendencies Toward Melancholia.

One Who Faces And Who Fears The Right Things And From The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Time, Posseses Character Worthy Of Our Trust And Admiration.

If A Man Of Good Natural Disposition Acquires Intelligence [as A Whole], Then He Excels In Conduct, And The Disposition Which Previously Only Resembled Virtue, Will Now Be Virtue In The True Sense. Hence Just As With The Faculty Of Forming Opinions [the Calculative Faculty] There Are Two Qualities, Cleverness And Prudence, So Also In The Moral Part Of The Soul There Are Two Qualities, Natural Virtue And True Virtue; And True Virtue Cannot Exist Without Prudence.

The Same Things Are Best Both For Individuals And For States, And These Are The Things Which The Legislator Ought To Implant In The Minds Of His Citizens.

So We Must Lay It Down That The Association Which Is A State Exists Not For The Purpose Of Living Together But For The Sake Of Noble Actions.

For We Do Not Think That We Know A Thing Until We Are Acquainted With Its Primary Conditions Or First Principles, And Have Carried Our Analysis As Far As Its Simplest Elements.

Purpose ... Is Held To Be Most Closely Connected With Virtue, And To Be A Better Token Of Our Character Than Are Even Our Acts.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

The Bad Man Is Continually At War With, And In Opposition To, Himself.

No Man Of High And Generous Spirit Is Ever Willing To Indulge In Flattery; The Good May Feel Affection For Others, But Will Not Flatter Them.

Generous Spirit

No One Chooses What Does Not Rest With Himself, But Only What He Thinks Can Be Attained By His Own Act.

Equality Consists In The Same Treatment Of Similar Persons.

Equal Treatment

Therefore The Good Man Ought To Be A Lover Of Self, Since He Will Then Both Benefit Himself By Acting Nobly And Aid His Fellows; But The Bad Man Ought Not To Be A Lover Of Self, Since He Will Follow His Base Passions, And So Injure Both Himself And His Neighbors. With The Bad Man Therefore, What He Does Is Not In Accord With What He Ought To Do, But The Good Man Does What He Ought, Since Intelligence Always Chooses For Itself That Which Is Best, And The Good Man Obeys His Intelligence.

Not To Get What You Have Set Your Heart On Is Almost As Bad As Getting Nothing At All.

Therefore, Even The Lover Of Myth Is A Philosopher; For Myth Is Composed Of Wonder.

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.

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

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

Selfishness Doesn't Consist In A Love To Yourself, But In A Big Degree Of Such Love.

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

Leisure Of Itself Gives Pleasure And Happiness And Enjoyment Of Life, Which Are Experienced, Not By The Busy Man, But By Those Who Have Leisure.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

The Soul Is The Form Of The Body

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

A Body In Motion Can Maintain This Motion Only If It Remains In Contact With A Mover.

Bodies In Motion

Every Wicked Man Is In Ignorance As To What He Ought To Do, And From What To Abstain, And It Is Because Of Error Such As This That Men Become Unjust And, In A Word, Wicked.

Most Persons Think That A State In Order To Be Happy Ought To Be Large; But Even If They Are Right, They Have No Idea Of What Is A Large And What A Small State.... To The Size Of States There Is A Limit, As There Is To Other Things, Plants, Animals, Implements; For None Of These Retain Their Natural Power When They Are Too Large Or Too Small, But They Either Wholly Lose Their Nature, Or Are Spoiled.

Time Is The Measurable Unit Of Movement Concerning A Before And An After.

Time Management

Every Virtue Is A Mean Between Two Extremes, Each Of Which Is A Vice.

Comedy Aims At Representing Men As Worse, Tragedy As Better Than In Actual Life.

But Since There Is But One Aim For The Entire State, It Follows That Education Must Be One And The Same For All, And That The Responsibility For It Must Be A Public One, Not The Private Affair Which It Now Is, Each Man Looking After His Own Children And Teaching Them Privately Whatever Private Curriculum He Thinks They Ought To Study.

No State Will Be Well Administered Unless The Middle Class Holds Sway.

Fear Is Pain Arising From The Anticipation Of Evil.

Where The Laws Are Not Supreme, There Demagogues Spring Up.

Great Men Are Always Of A Nature Originally Melancholy.

For We Are Inquiring Not In Order To Know What Virtue Is, But In Order To Become Good, Since Otherwise Our Inquiry Would Have Been Of No Use

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

For The More Limited, If Adequate, Is Always Preferable.

The Educated Differ From The Uneducated As Much As The Living From The Dead.

There Is Nothing Unequal As The Equal Treatment Of Unequals.

Equal Treatment

Fine Friendship Requires Duration Rather Than Fitful Intensity.

...the Life Which Is Best For Men, Both Separately, As Individuals, And In The Mass, As States, Is The Life Which Has Virtue Sufficiently Supported By Material Resources To Facilitate Participation In The Actions That Virtue Calls For.

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

It Is A Part Of Probability That Many Improbable Things Will Happen.

Goodness Is To Do Good To The Deserving And Love The Good And Hate The Wicked, And Not To Be Eager To Inflict Punishment Or Take Vengeance, But To Be Gracious And Kindly And Forgiving.

All Virtue Is Summed Up In Dealing Justly.

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.

Obstinate People Can Be Divided Into The Opinionated, The Ignorant, And The Boorish.

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

If There Is Any Kind Of Animal Which Is Female And Has No Male Separate From It, It Is Possible That This May Generate A Young One From Itself. No Instance Of This Worthy Of Any Credit Has Been Observed Up To The Present At Any Rate, But One Case In The Class Of Fishes Makes Us Hesitate. No Male Of The So-called Erythrinus Has Ever Yet Been Seen, But Females, And Specimens Full Of Roe, Have Been Seen. Of This, However, We Have As Yet No Proof Worthy Of Credit.

The Aim Of The Wise Is Not To Secure Pleasure, But To Avoid Pain.

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 Beauty Of The Soul Shines Out When A Man Bears With Composure One Heavy Mischance After Another, Not Because He Does Not Feel Them, But Because He Is A Man Of High And Heroic Temper.

It Was Through The Feeling Of Wonder That Men Now And At First Began To Philosophize.

Two Characteristic Marks Have Above All Others Been Recognized As Distinguishing That Which Has Soul In It From That Which Has Not - Movement And Sensation.

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

That Which Is Common To The Greatest Number Has The Least Care Bestowed Upon It

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

95% Of Everything You Do Is The Result Of Habit.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

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.

Happiness Lies In Virtuous Activity, And Perfect Happiness Lies In The Best Activity, Which Is Contemplative

Anyone, Without Any Great Penetration, May Distinguish The Dispositions Consequent On Wealth; For Its Possessors Are Insolent And Overbearing, From Being Tainted In A Certain Way By The Getting Of Their Wealth. For They Are Affected As Though They Possessed Every Good; Since Wealth Is A Sort Of Standard Of The Worth Of Other Things; Whence Every Thing Seems To Be Purchasable By It.

Justice Is Equality...but Equality Of What?

We Must Not Feel A Childish Disgust At The Investigations Of The Meaner Animals. For There Is Something Marvelous In All Natural Things.

We Cannot ... Prove Geometrical Truths By Arithmetic.

It Is Of The Nature Of Desire Not To Be Satisfied, And Most Men Live Only For The Gratification Of It.

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

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

Equity Is That Idea Of Justice Which Contravenes The Written Law.

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

A Tyrant Must Put On The Appearance Of Uncommon Devotion To Religion. Subjects Are Less Apprehensive Of Illegal Treatment From A Ruler Whom They Consider God-fearing And Pious. On The Other Hand, They Do Less Easily Move Against Him, Believing That He Has The Gods On His Side.

There's Many A Slip Between The Cup And The Lip.

Democracy 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.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

In Everything, It Is No Easy Task To Find The Middle.

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

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.

We Are The Sum Of Our Actions, And Therefore Our Habits Make All The Difference.

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn

All Three States - The Lacedaemonian, The Cretan, And The Carthaginian - Nearly Resemble One Another, And Are Very Different From Any Others. Many Of The Carthaginian Institutions Are Excellent. The Superiority Of Their Constitution Is Proved By The Fact That The Common People Remains Loyal To The Constitution; The Carthaginians Have Never Had Any Rebellion Worth Speaking Of, And Have Never Been Under The Rule Of A Tyrant.

When Quarrels And Complaints Arise, It Is When People Who Are Equal Have Not Got Equal Shares, Or Vice-versa.

Revolutions Are Effected In Two Ways, By Force And By Fraud.

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.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

Wise People Have An Inward Sense Of What Is Beautiful, And The Highest Wisdom Is To Trust This Intuition And Be Guided By It.

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

The Physician Heals, Nature Makes Well.

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.

And What Has Come To Prevail In Democracies Is The Very Reverse Of Beneficial, In Those, That Is, Which Are Regarded As The Most Democratically Run. The Reason For This Lies In The Failure Properly To Define Liberty. For There Are Two Marks By Which Democracy Is Thought To Be Defined: "sovereignty Of The Majority" And "liberty." "just" Is Equated With What Is Equal, And The Decision Of The Majority As To What Is Equal Is Regarded As Sovereign; And Liberty Is Seen In Terms Of Doing What One Wants.

The Young Are Permanently In A State Resembling Intoxication.

The Virtues [moral Excellence] Therefore Are Engendered In Us Neither By Nature Nor Yet In Violation Of Nature; Nature Gives Us The Capacity To Receive Them, And This Capacity Is Brought To Maturity By Habit.

Today You Can Start Forming Habits For Overcoming All Obstacles In Life... Even Nicotine Cravings

Take The Case Of Just Actions; Just Punishments And Chastisements Do Indeed Spring From A Good Principle, But They Are Good Only Because We Cannot Do Without Them - It Would Be Better That Neither Individuals Nor States Should Need Anything Of The Sort - But Actions Which Aim At Honor And Advantage Are Absolutely The Best. The Conditional Action Is Only The Choice Of A Lesser Evil; Whereas These Are The Foundation And Creation Of Good. A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life.

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.

Special Care Should Be Taken Of The Health Of The Inhabitants, Which Will Depend Chiefly On The Healthiness Of The Locality And Of The Quarter To Which They Are Exposed, And Secondly On The Use Of Pure Water; This Latter Point Is By No Means A Secondary Consideration. For The Elements Which We Use The Most And Oftenest For The Support Of The Body Contribute Most To Health, And Among Those Are Water And Air. Wherefore, In All Wise States, If There Is Want Of Pure Water, And The Supply Is Not All Equally Good, The Drinking Water Ought To Be Separated From That Which Is Used For Other Purposes.

It Is Our Actions And The Soul's Active Exercise Of Its Functions That We Posit (as Being Happiness).

He Who Cannot Be A Good Follower Cannot Be A Good Leader.

The Good Lawgiver Should Inquire How States And Races Of Men And Communities May Participate In A Good Life, And In The Happiness Which Is Attainable By Them.

Excellence, Then, Is A State Concerned With Choice, Lying In A Mean, Relative To Us, This Being Determined By Reason And In The Way In Which The Man Of Practical Wisdom Would Determine It.

Modesty Is Hardly To Be Described As A Virtue. It Is A Feeling Rather Than A Disposition. It Is A Kind Of Fear Of Falling Into Disrepute.

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

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).

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

The Greatest Injustices Proceed From Those Who Pursue Excess, Not By Those Who Are Driven By Necessity.

Now The Greatest External Good We Should Assume To Be The Thing Which We Offer As A Tribute To The Gods, And Which Is Most Coveted By Men Of High Station, And Is The Prize Awarded For The Noblest Deeds; And Such A Thing Is Honor, For Honor Is Clearly The Greatest Of External Goods.

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 . .

Happiness Does Not Consist In Pastimes And Amusements But In Virtuous Activities.

It Would Then Be Most Admirably Adapted To The Purposes Of Justice, If Laws Properly Enacted Were, As Far As Circumstances Admitted, Of Themselves To Mark Out All Cases, And To Abandon As Few As Possible To The Discretion Of The Judge.

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.

A City Is Composed Of Different Kinds Of Men; Similar People Cannot Bring A City Into Existence.

There Are, Then, Three States Of Mind ... Two Vices--that Of Excess, And That Of Defect; And One Virtue--the Mean; And All These Are In A Certain Sense Opposed To One Another; For The Extremes Are Not Only Opposed To The Mean, But Also To One Another; And The Mean Is Opposed To The Extremes.

There Is No Great Genius Without A Mixture Of Madness.

In A Race, The Quickest Runner Can Never Overtake The Slowest, Since The Pursuer Must First Reach The Point Whence The Pursued Started, So That The Slower Must Always Hold A Lead.

Now That Practical Skills Have Developed Enough To Provide Adequately For Material Needs, One Of These Sciences Which Are Not Devoted To Utilitarian Ends [mathematics] Has Been Able To Arise In Egypt, The Priestly Caste There Having The Leisure Necessary For Disinterested Research.

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

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

Art Takes Nature As Its Model.

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.

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.

To Enjoy The Things We Ought And To Hate The Things We Ought Has The Greatest Bearing On Excellence Of Character.

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.

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

Meaning Of Life

The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

The Error Of Socrates Must Be Attributed To The False Notion Of Unity From Which He Starts. Unity There Should Be, Both Of The Family And Of The State, But In Some Respects Only. For There Is A Point At Which A State May Attain Such A Degree Of Unity As To Be No Longer A State, Or At Which, Without Actually Ceasing To Exist, It Will Become An Inferior State, Like Harmony Passing Into Unison, Or Rhythm Which Has Been Reduced To A Single Foot. The State, As I Was Saying, Is A Plurality Which Should Be United And Made Into A Community By Education

For Any Two Portions Of Fire, Small Or Great, Will Exhibit The Same Ratio Of Solid To Void; But The Upward Movement Of The Greater Is Quicker Than That Of The Less, Just As The Downward Movement Of A Mass Of Gold Or Lead, Or Of Any Other Body Endowed With Weight, Is Quicker In Proportion To Its Size.

When You Feel Yourself Lacking Something, Send Your Thoughts Towards Your Intimate And Search For The Divinity That Lives Within You.

Lacking Something

Moral Virtue Is ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Of Excess And That Of Defect, And ... It Is No Small Task To Hit The Mean In Each Case, As It Is Not, For Example, Any Chance Comer, But Only The Geometer, Who Can Find The Center Of A Given Circle.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Man To Look For Precision In Each Class Of Things Just So Far As The Nature Of The Subject Admits

But Nothing Is Yet Clear On The Subject Of The Intellect And The Contemplative Faculty. However, It Seems To Be Another Kind Of Soul, And This Alone Admits Of Being Separated, As That Which Is Eternal From That Which Is Perishable, While It Is Clear From These Remarks That The Other Parts Of The Soul Are Not Separable, As Some Assert Them To Be, Though It Is Obvious That They Are Conceptually Distinct.

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.

Why Is It That All Those Who Have Become Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, Or The Arts Are Clearly Of An Atrabilious Temperament And Some Of Them To Such An Extent As To Be Affected By Diseases Caused By Black Bile?

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

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers, And Oligarchy In Which The Rich; It Is Only An Accident That The Free Are The Many And The Rich Are The Few.

Trending Author

Stephen Baldwin

Nikolai Berdyaev

Category