Background Image

...

Where Some People Are Very Wealthy And Others Have Nothing, The Result Will Be Either Extreme Democracy Or Absolute Oligarchy, Or Despotism Will Come From Either Of Those Excesses.

-Aristotle

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Where Some People Are

Aristotle

...

Where Some People Are Very Wealthy And Others Have Nothing, The Result Will Be Either Extreme Democracy Or Absolute Oligarchy, Or Despotism Will Come From Either Of Those Excesses.

Views: 13533

Topic

More From Aristotle

God And Nature Create Nothing That Does Not Fulfill A Purpose

A Fool Contributes Nothing Worth Hearing And Takes Offense At Everything.

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

Moral Virtue Is A Mean . . . Between Two Vices, One Of Excess And The Other Of Defect; . . . It Is Such A Mean Because It Aims At Hitting The Middle Point In Feelings And In Actions. This Is Why It Is A Hard Task To Be Good, For It Is Hard To Find The Middle Point In Anything.

In [the Soul] One Part Naturally Rules, And The Other Is Subject, And The Virtue Of The Ruler We Maintain To Be Different From That Of The Subject; The One Being The Virtue Of The Rational, And The Other Of The Irrational Part. Now, It Is Obvious That The Same Principle Applies Generally, And Therefore Almost All Things Rule And Are Ruled According To Nature.

There Must Be In Prudence Also Some Master Virtue.

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

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.

We Cannot ... Prove Geometrical Truths By Arithmetic.

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

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 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 Only Stable State Is The One In Which All Men Are Equal Before The Law.

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

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

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.

Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

Characteristics

The Greatest Thing In Style Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor.

The Beginning, As The Proverb Says, Is Half The Whole.

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.

In Most Constitutional States The Citizens Rule And Are Ruled By Turns, For The Idea Of A Constitutional State Implies That The Natures Of The Citizens Are Equal, And Do Not Differ At All.

Quality Is Not An Act, It Is A Habit.

Neither By Nature, Then, Nor Contrary To Nature Do The Virtues Arise In Us; Rather We Are Adapted By Nature To Receive Them, And Are Made Perfect By Habit.

The Gods Too Are Fond Of A Joke.

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.

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.

A Man Can Make Up His Mind Quickly When He Has Only A Little To Make Up.

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.

Since Music Has So Much To Do With The Molding Of Character, It Is Necessary That We Teach It To Our Children.

Xenophanes States That The Fire In Lipara Once Failed For Sixteen Years, But Returned In The Seventeenth Year. They Say That The Lava-stream In Etna Is Neither Flaming Nor Continuous, But Returns Only After An Interval Of Many Years.

Republics Decline Into Democracies And Democracies Degenerate Into Despotisms.

There Are Branches Of Learning And Education Which We Must Study Merely With A View To Leisure Spent In Intellectual Activity, And These Are To Be Valued For Their Own Sake; Whereas Those Kinds Of Knowledge Which Are Useful In Business Are To Be Deemed Necessary, And Exist For The Sake Of Other Things.

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

Education And Morals Make The Good Man, The Good Statesman, The Good Ruler.

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.

Those That Deem Politics Beneath Their Dignity Are Doomed To Be Governed By Those Of Lesser Talents.

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

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.

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.

For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Philosophical And More Worthy Of Serious Attention Than History.

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.

The Tyrant, Who In Order To Hold His Power, Suppresses Every Superiority, Does Away With Good Men, Forbids Education And Light, Controls Every Movement Of The Citizens And, Keeping Them Under A Perpetual Servitude, Wants Them To Grow Accustomed To Baseness And Cowardice, Has His Spies Everywhere To Listen To What Is Said In The Meetings, And Spreads Dissension And Calumny Among The Citizens And Impoverishes Them, Is Obliged To Make War In Order To Keep His Subjects Occupied And Impose On Them Permanent Need Of A Chief.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

Metaphysics Is Universal And Is Exclusively Concerned With Primary Substance. ... And Here We Will Have The Science To Study That Which Is, Both In Its Essence And In The Properties Which It Has.

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.

Now, The Causes Being Four, It Is The Business Of The Student Of Nature To Know About Them All, And If He Refers His Problems Back To All Of Them, He Will Assign The "why" In The Way Proper To His Science-the Matter, The Form, The Mover, That For The Sake Of Which.

One Can Aim At Honor Both As One Ought, And More Than One Ought, And Less Than One Ought. He Whose Craving For Honor Is Excessive Is Said To Be Ambitious, And He Who Is Deficient In This Respect Unambitious; While He Who Observes The Mean Has No Peculiar Name.

Being A Father Is The Most Rewarding Thing A Man Whose Career Has Plateaued Can Do.

... The Friendship Of Worthless People Has A Bad Effect (because They Take Part, Unstable As They Are, In Worthless Pursuits, And Actually Become Bad Through Each Other's Influence). But The Friendship Of The Good Is Good, And Increases In Goodness Because Of Their Association. They Seem Even To Become Better Men By Exercising Their Friendship And Improving Each Other; For The Traits That They Admire In Each Other Get Transferred To Themselves.

Again, The Male Is By Nature Superior, And The Female Inferior; And The One Rules, And The Other Is Ruled; This Principle, Of Necessity, Extends To All Mankind.

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.

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

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

Perhaps Here We Have A Clue To The Reason Why Royal Rule Used To Exist Formerly, Namely The Difficulty Of Finding Enough Men Of Outstanding Virtue.

Wicked Me Obey From Fear; Good Men,from Love.

The Duty Of Rhetoric Is To Deal With Such Matters As We Deliberate Upon Without Arts Or Systems To Guide Us, In The Hearing Of Persons Who Cannot Take In At A Glance A Complicated Argument Or Follow A Long Chain Of Reasoning.

A Life Of Wealth And Many Belongings Is Only A Means To Happiness. Honor, Power, And Success Cannot Be Happiness Because They Depend On The Whims Of Others, And Happiness Should Be Self-contained, Complete In Itself.

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

To Be Angry Is Easy. But To Be Angry With The Right Man At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, That Is Not Easy.

To Love Someone Is To Identify With Them.

In The Case Of Some People, Not Even If We Had The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, Would It Be Easy To Persuade Them Were We To Address Them Through The Medium Of That Knowledge; For A Scientific Discourse, It Is The Privilege Of Education To Appreciate, And It Is Impossible That This Should Extend To The Multitude.

Our Account Does Not Rob The Mathematicians Of Their Science... In Point Of Fact They Do Not Need The Infinite And Do Not Use It.

One May Go Wrong In Many Different Ways, But Right Only In One, Which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed.

When Pleasure Is At The Bar The Jury Is Not Impartial.

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

A State Is Not A Mere Society, Having A Common Place, Established For The Prevention Of Mutual Crime And For The Sake Of Exchange. Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Mere Companionship.

We Must Not Listen To Those Who Advise Us 'being Men To Think Human Thoughts, And Being Mortal To Think Mortal Thoughts' But Must Put On Immortality As Much As Possible And Strain Every Nerve To Live According To That Best Part Of Us, Which, Being Small In Bulk, Yet Much More In Its Power And Honour Surpasses All Else.

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.

The Government Of Freemen Is Nobler And Implies More Virtue Than Despotic Government. Neither Is A City To Be Deemed Happy Or A Legislator To Be Praised Because He Trains His Citizens To Conquer And Obtain Dominion Over Their Neighbors, For There Is Great Evil In This.

Where Some People Are Very Wealthy And Others Have Nothing, The Result Will Be Either Extreme Democracy Or Absolute Oligarchy, Or Despotism Will Come From Either Of Those Excesses.

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

To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn

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

It Is Our Choice Of Good Or Evil That Determines Our Character, Not Our Opinion About Good Or Evil.

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.

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.

Time Crumbles Things; Everything Grows Old Under The Power Of Time And Is Forgotten Through The Lapse Of Time.

It Is In Justice That The Ordering Of Society Is Centered.

We Are What We Do. Excellence, Therefore, Is Not An Act, But A Habit.

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

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

Praise Invariably Implies A Reference To A Higher Standard.

Higher Standards

Anaximenes And Anaxagoras And Democritus Say That Its [the Earth's] Flatness Is Responsible For It Staying Still: For It Does Not Cut The Air Beneath But Covers It Like A Lid, Which Flat Bodies Evidently Do: For They Are Hard To Move Even For The Winds, On Account Of Their Resistance.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

Man Perfected By Society Is The Best Of All Animals; He Is The Most Terrible Of All When He Lives Without Law, And Without Justice.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

So, If We Must Give A General Formula Applicable To All Kinds Of Soul, We Must Describe It As The First Actuality [entelechy] Of Anatural Organized Body.

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

The Character Which Results From Wealth Is That Of A Prosperous Fool.

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

A Period May Be Defined As A Portion Of Speech That Has In Itself A Beginning And An End, Being At The Same Time Not Too Big To Be Taken In At A Glance

The Roots Of Education Are Bitter, But The Fruit Is Sweet.

Excellence Is Never An Accident. It Is Always The Result Of High Intention, Sincere Effort, And Intelligent Execution; It Represents The Wise Choice Of Many Alternatives - Choice, Not Chance, Determines Your Destiny.

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.

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

Inasmuch As Every Family Is A Part Of A State, And These Relationships Are The Parts Of A Family, And The Virtue Of The Part Must Have Regard To The Virtue Of The Whole, Women And Children Must Be Trained By Education With An Eye To The Constitution, If The Virtues Of Either Of Them Are Supposed To Make Any Difference In The Virtues Of The State. And They Must Make A Difference: For The Children Grow Up To Be Citizens, And Half The Free Persons In A State Are Women.

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.

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge.

If Men Think That A Ruler Is Religious And Has A Reverence For The Gods, They Are Less Afraid Of Suffering Injustice At His Hands.

Every Rascal Is Not A Thief, But Every Thief Is A Rascal.

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

The Young Are Permanently In A State Resembling Intoxication.

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

The Senses Are Gateways To The Intelligence. There Is Nothing In The Intelligence Which Did Not First Pass Through The Senses.

Whereas The Law Is Passionless, Passion Must Ever Sway The Heart Of Man.

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.

When People Are Friends, They Have No Need Of Justice, But When They Are Just, They Need Friendship In Addition.

Jealousy Is Both Reasonable And Belongs To Reasonable Men, While Envy Is Base And Belongs To The Base, For The One Makes Himself Get Good Things By Jealousy, While The Other Does Not Allow His Neighbour To Have Them Through Envy.

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

The Virtue Of The Good Man Is Necessarily The Same As The Virtue Of The Citizen Of The Perfect State.

You Will Never Do Anything In This World Without Courage. It Is The Greatest Quality Of The Mind Next To Honor.

Money Is A Guarantee That We May Have What We Want In The Future. Though We Need Nothing At The Moment It Insures The Possibility Of Satisfying A New Desire When It Arises.

Guarantees That

The Fool Tells Me His Reason; The Wise Man Persuades Me With My Own.

A Democracy Is A Government In The Hands Of Men Of Low Birth, No Property, And Vulgar Employments.

He Who Hath Many Friends Hath None.

A Vivid Image Compels The Whole Body To Follow.

Even The Best Of Men In Authority Are Liable To Be Corrupted By Passion. We May Conclude Then That The Law Is Reason Without Passion, And It Is Therefore Preferable To Any Individual.

They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.

The Trade Of The Petty Usurer Is Hated With Most Reason: It Makes A Profit From Currency Itself, Instead Of Making It From The Process Which Currency Was Meant To Serve. Their Common Characteristic Is Obviously Their Sordid Avarice.

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

You Should Never Think Without An Image.

There Is Only One Condition In Which We Can Imagine Managers Not Needing Subordinates, And Masters Not Needing Slaves. This Condition Would Be That Each (inanimate) Instrument Could Do Its Own Work.

I Seek To Bring Forth What You Almost Already Know.

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.

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 Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.

Friends Are Much Better Tried In Bad Fortune Than In Good.

All Persons Ought To Endeavor To Follow What Is Right, And Not What Is Established.

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.

If You See A Man Approaching With The Obvious Intent Of Doing You Good, Run For Your Life. Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

The Many Are More Incorruptible Than The Few; They Are Like The Greater Quantity Of Water Which Is Less Easily Corrupted Than A Little.

Happiness Is The Highest Good

Beauty Depends On Size As Well As Symmetry. No Very Small Animal Can Be Beautiful, For Looking At It Takes So Small A Portion Of Time That The Impression Of It Will Be Confused. Nor Can Any Very Large One, For A Whole View Of It Cannot Be Had At Once, And So There Will Be No Unity And Completeness.

Distance Does Not Break Off The Friendship Absolutely, But Only The Activity Of It.

Long Distance Relationship

The Final Cause, Then, Produces Motion Through Being Loved.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain. Therefore, It Is Imperative For Persons To Act In Accordance With Their Nature And Develop Their Latent Talents, In Order To Be Content And Complete.

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

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.

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

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

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.

Philosophy Is The Science Which Considers Truth.

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.

We Must Speak First About The Division Of Land And About Those Who Cultivate It: Who Should They Be And What Kind Of Person? We Do Not Agree With Those Who Have Said That Property Should Be Communally Owned, But We Do Believe That There Should Be A Friendly Arrangement For Its Common Use, And That None Of The Citizens Should Be Without Means Of Support.

The Man Who Is Truly Good And Wise Will Bear With Dignity Whatever Fortune Sends, And Will Always Make The Best Of His Circumstances.

There Is No Great Genius Without A Mixture Of Madness.

If The Art Of Ship-building Were In The Wood, Ships Would Exist By 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.

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.

The Principle Aim Of Gymnastics Is The Education Of All Youth And Not Simply That Minority Of People Highly Favored By Nature.

To Die In Order To Avoid The Pains Of Poverty, Love, Or Anything That Is Disagreeable, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Of A Coward.

We Have Divided The Virtues Of The Soul Into Two Groups, The Virtues Of The Character And The Virtues Of The Intellect.

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

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

When You Ask A Dumb Question, You Get A Smart Answer.

Wit Is Educated Insolence.

Plot Is Character Revealed By Action.

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.

The Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

All Proofs Rest On Premises.

If 'bounded By A Surface' Is The Definition Of Body There Cannot Be An Infinite Body Either Intelligible Or Sensible.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

Courage Is The First Virtue That Makes All Other Virtues Possible.

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.

There Is More Evidence To Prove That Saltness [of The Sea] Is Due To The Admixture Of Some Substance, Besides That Which We Have Adduced. Make A Vessel Of Wax And Put It In The Sea, Fastening Its Mouth In Such A Way As To Prevent Any Water Getting In. Then The Water That Percolates Through The Wax Sides Of The Vessel Is Sweet, The Earthy Stuff, The Admixture Of Which Makes The Water Salt, Being Separated Off As It Were By A Filter.

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.

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

To Leave The Number Of Births Unrestricted, As Is Done In Most States, Inevitably Causes Poverty Among The Citizens, And Poverty Produces Crime And Faction.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being; For It Is Concerned Neither With Things That Are, Or Come Into Being By Necessity, Nor With Things That Do So In Accordance With Nature.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

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.

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

It Seems That Ambition Makes Most People Wish To Be Loved Rather Than To Love Others.

Plants, Again, Inasmuch As They Are Without Locomotion, Present No Great Variety In Their Heterogeneous Pacts. For, When The Functions Are But Few, Few Also Are The Organs Required To Effect Them. ... Animals, However, That Not Only Live But Perceive, Present A Great Multiformity Of Pacts, And This Diversity Is Greater In Some Animals Than In Others, Being Most Varied In Those To Whose Share Has Fallen Not Mere Life But Life Of High Degree. Now Such An Animal Is Man.

Purpose Is A Desire For Something In Our Own Power, Coupled With An Investigation Into Its Means.

For Contemplation Is Both The Highest Form Of Activity (since The Intellect Is The Highest Thing In Us, And The Objects That It Apprehends Are The Highest Things That Can Be Known), And Also It Is The Most Continuous, Because We Are More Capable Of Continuous Contemplation Than We Are Of Any Practical Activity.

The Activity Of Happiness Must Occupy An Entire Lifetime; For One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make.

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.

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.

Patience S Bitter, But It's Fruit Is Sweet.

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.

Greed Has No Boundaries

There Are Three Qualifications Required In Those Who Have To Fill The Highest Offices, - (1) First Of All, Loyalty To The Established Constitution; (2) The Greatest Administrative Capacity; (3) Virtue And Justice Of The Kind Proper To Each Form Of Government.

There Are Some Jobs In Which It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Virtuous.

It Is Likely That Unlikely Things Should Happen

The Soul Suffers When The Body Is Diseased Or Traumatized, While The Body Suffers When The Soul Is Ailing.

All Communication Must Lead To Change

That Which Is Impossible And Probable Is Better Than That Which Is Possible And Improbable.

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

Prudence As Well As Moral Virtue Determines The Complete Performance Of A Man's Proper Function: Virtue Ensures The Rightness Of The End We Aim At, Prudence Ensures The Rightness Of The Means We Adopt To Gain That End.

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

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.

Art Takes Nature As Its Model.

The Continuum Is That Which Is Divisible Into Indivisibles That Are Infinitely Divisible.

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.

Demonstration Is Also Something Necessary, Because A Demonstration Cannot Go Otherwise Than It Does, ... And The Cause Of This Lies With The Primary Premises/principles.

Words Of Wisdom

Trending Author

Arnold Rothstein

John Kricfalusi

Category