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Whereas Young People Become Accomplished In Geometry And Mathematics, And Wise Within These Limits, Prudent Young People Do Not Seem To Be Found. The Reason Is That Prudence Is Concerned With Particulars As Well As Universals, And Particulars Become Known From Experience, But A Young Person Lacks Experience, Since Some Length Of Time Is Needed To Produce It.

-Aristotle

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Whereas Young People Become

Aristotle

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Whereas Young People Become Accomplished In Geometry And Mathematics, And Wise Within These Limits, Prudent Young People Do Not Seem To Be Found. The Reason Is That Prudence Is Concerned With Particulars As Well As Universals, And Particulars Become Known From Experience, But A Young Person Lacks Experience, Since Some Length Of Time Is Needed To Produce It.

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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.'

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That Judges Of Important Causes Should Hold Office For Life Is A Questionable Thing, For The Mind Grows Old As Well As The Body.

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A Likely Impossibility Is Always Preferable To An Unconvincing Possibility.

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

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Only An Armed People Can Be Truly Free. Only An Unarmed People Can Ever Be Enslaved.

The Legislator Should Direct His Attention Above All To The Education Of Youth; For The Neglect Of Education Does Harm To The Constitution. The Citizen Should Be Molded To Suit The Form Of Government Under Which He Lives. For Each Government Has A Peculiar Character Which Originally Formed And Which Continues To Preserve It. The Character Of Democracy Creates Democracy, And The Character Of Oligarchy Creates Oligarchy.

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

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It Is Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences.

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

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. .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.

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Democracies Have

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

The Blood Of A Goat Will Shatter A Diamond.

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

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

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Logical Reasoning

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

A Goal Gets Us Motivated,while A Good Habit Keeps Us Stay Motivated.

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.

Of The Tyrant, Spies And Informers Are The Principal Instruments. War Is His Favorite Occupation, For The Sake Of Engrossing The Attention Of The People, And Making Himself Necessary To Them As Their Leader.

Worms Are The Intestines Of The Earth.

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

The Mathematical Sciences Particularly Exhibit Order Symmetry And Limitations; And These Are The Greatest Forms Of The Beautiful.

In Revolutions The Occasions May Be Trifling But Great Interest Are At Stake.

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

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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.

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The Purpose Of Art Is To Represent The Meaning Of Things. This Represents The True Reality, Not External Aspects.

Something Is Infinite If, Taking It Quantity By Quantity, We Can Always Take Something Outside.

He Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.

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.

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

And It Is Characteristic Of Man That He Alone Has Any Sense Of Good And Evil, Of Just And Unjust, And The Like, And The Association Of Living Beings Who Have This Sense Makes Family And A State.

Educating The Mind Without Educating The Heart Is No Education At All.

The Soul Has Two Parts, One Rational And The Other Irrational. Let Us Now Similarly Divide The Rational Part, And Let It Be Assumed That There Are Two Rational Faculties, One Whereby We Contemplate Those Things Whose First Principles Are Invariable, And One Whereby We Contemplate Those Things Which Admit Of Variation.

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

Men Agree That Justice In The Abstract Is Proportion, But They Differ In That Some Think That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely, Others That If They Are Unequal In Any Respect They Should Be Unequal In All. The Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

To Write Well, Express Yourself Like The Common People, But Think Like A Wise Man.

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

Happiness Seems To Require A Modicum Of External Prosperity.

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

Excellence Or Virtue In A Man Will Be The Disposition Which Renders Him A Good Man And Also Which Will Cause Him To Perform His Function Well.

For One Swallow Does Not Make A Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

It Is More Difficult To Organize A Peace Than To Win A War; But The Fruits Of Victory Will Be Lost If The Peace Is Not Organized.

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

Bodies In Motion

The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

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

Perception Starts With The Eye.

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

The Physician Himself, If Sick, Actually Calls In Another Physician, Knowing That He Cannot Reason Correctly If Required To Judge His Own Condition While Suffering.

Where It Is In Our Power To Act, It Is Also In Our Power To Not Act.

Nicomachean Ethics

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

Those Who Educate Children Well Are More To Be Honored Than They Who Produce Them; For These Only Gave Them Life, Those The Art Of Living Well.

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

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.

I Seek To Bring Forth What You Almost Already Know.

A Line Is Not Made Up Of Points. ... In The Same Way, Time Is Not Made Up Parts Considered As Indivisible 'nows.' Part Of Aristotle's Reply To Zeno's Paradox Concerning Continuity.

Wit Is Cultured Insolence.

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

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

The Attainment Of Truth Is Then The Function Of Both The Intellectual Parts Of The Soul. Therefore Their Respective Virtues Are Those Dispositions Which Will Best Qualify Them To Attain Truth.

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.

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

Whereas Young People Become Accomplished In Geometry And Mathematics, And Wise Within These Limits, Prudent Young People Do Not Seem To Be Found. The Reason Is That Prudence Is Concerned With Particulars As Well As Universals, And Particulars Become Known From Experience, But A Young Person Lacks Experience, Since Some Length Of Time Is Needed To Produce It.

We Do Not Act Rightly Because We Have Virtue Or Excellence. But They Hesitate, Waiting For The Other Fellow To Make The First Move-and He, In Turn, Waits For You.

The End Of Labor Is To Gain Leisure.

A King Ruleth As He Ought, A Tyrant As He Lists, A King To The Profit Of All, A Tyrant Only To Please A Few.

No Excellent Soul Is Exempt From A Mixture Of Madness.

There Is No Genius Who Hasn't A Touch Of Insanity.

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

The Investigation Of The Truth Is In One Way Hard, In Another Easy. An Indication Of This Is Found In The Fact That No One Is Able To Attain The Truth Adequately, While, On The Other Hand, No One Fails Entirely, But Everyone Says Something True About The Nature Of All Things, And While Individually They Contribute Little Or Nothing To The Truth, By The Union Of All A Considerable Amount Is Amassed.

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

A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life; But He Can Only Attain Happiness Under The Opposite Conditions

It Is Not Enough To Win A War; It Is More Important To Organize The Peace.

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.

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.

A Vivid Image Compels The Whole Body To Follow.

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.

For What Is The Best Choice For Each Individual Is The Highest It Is Possible For Him To Achieve.

Greed Has No Boundaries

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

As Often As We Do Good, We Offer Sacrifices To God.

Sacrifice To God

Men Are Swayed More By Fear Than By Reverence.

A Thing Chosen Always As An End And Never As A Means We Call Absolutely Final. Now Happiness Above All Else Appears To Be Absolutely Final In This Sense, Since We Always Choose It For Its Own Sake And Never As A Means To Something Else.

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.

Justice Is The Loveliest And Health Is The Best. But The Sweetest To Obtain Is The Heart's Desire.

The Body Is Most Fully Developed From Thirty To Thirty-five Years Of Age, The Mind At About Forty-nine.

And This Lies In The Nature Of Things: What People Are Potentially Is Revealed In Actuality By What They Produce.

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

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

The Knowledge Of The Soul Admittedly Contributes Greatly To The Advance Of Truth In General, And, Above All, To Our Understanding Of Nature, For The Soul Is In Some Sense The Principle Of Animal Life.

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.

The Science That Studies The Supreme Good For Man Is Politics.

The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

It Is Homer Who Has Chiefly Taught Other Poets The Art Of Telling Lies Skillfully.

Today, See If You Can Stretch Your Heart And Expand Your Love So That It Touches Not Only Those To Whom You Can Give It Easily, But Also To Those Who Need It So Much.

Happiness Is Self-connectedness.

Soul And Body, I Suggest React Sympathetically Upon Each Other. A Change In The State Of The Soul Produces A Change In The Shape Of The Body And Conversely, A Change In The Shape Of The Body Produces A Change In The State Of The Soul.

Democracy Arose From Men's Thinking That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely.

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

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

Men Create The Gods After Their Own Images.

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

Our Feelings Towards Our Friends Reflect Our Feelings Towards Ourselves.

He Who Can Be, And Therefore Is, Another's, And He Who Participates In Reason Enough To Apprehend, But Not To Have, Is A Slave By Nature.

... There Must Then Be A Principle Of Such A Kind That Its Substance Is Activity.

Words Of Wisdom

Women Who Are With Child Should Be Careful Of Themselves; They Should Take Exercise And Have A Nourishing Diet. The First Of These Prescriptions The Legislator Will Easily Carry Into Effect By Requiring That They Should Take A Walk Daily To Some Temple, Where They Can Worship The Gods Who Preside Over Birth. Their Minds, However, Unlike Their Bodies, They Ought To Keep Quiet, For The Offspring Derive Their Natures From Their Mothers As Plants Do From Earth.

Wonder Implies The Desire To Learn.

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.

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

That Which Is Excellent Endures.

It Would Be Wrong To Put Friendship Before The Truth.

It Is Well Said, Then, That It Is By Doing Just Acts That The Just Man Is Produced, And By Doing Temperate Acts The Temperate Man; Without Doing These No One Would Have Even A Prospect Of Becoming Good. But Most People Do Not Do These, But Take Refuge In Theory And Think They Are Being Philosophers And Will Become Good In This Way, Behaving Somewhat Like Patients Who Listen Attentively To Their Doctors, But Do None Of The Things They Are Ordered To Do.

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Choice, Is Thought To Aim At Some Good; And For This Reason The Good Has Rightly Been Declared To Be That At Which All Things Aim.

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.

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.

You Can Never Learn Anything That You Did Not Already Know

We Give Up Leisure In Order That We May Have Leisure, Just As We Go To War In Order That We May Have Peace.

Bravery Is A Mean State Concerned With Things That Inspire Confidence And With Things Fearful ... And Leading Us To Choose Danger And To Face It, Either Because To Do So Is Noble, Or Because Not To Do So Is Base. But To Court Death As An Escape From Poverty, Or From Love, Or From Some Grievous Pain, Is No Proof Of Bravery, But Rather Of Cowardice.

Poetry Is Finer And More Philosophical Than History; For Poetry Expresses The Universal, And History Only The Particular.

It Is Through Wonder That Men Now Begin And Originally Began To Philosophize; Wondering In The First Place At Obvious Perplexities, And Then By Gradual Progression Raising Questions About The Greater Matters Too.

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

The Life Of The Intellect Is The Best And Pleasantest For Man, Because The Intellect More Than Anything Else Is The Man. Thus It Will Be The Happiest Life As Well.

Knowledge Of The Fact Differs From Knowledge Of The Reason For The Fact.

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.

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.

The Soul Consists Of Two Parts, One Irrational And The Other Capable Of Reason. (whether These Two Parts Are Really Distinct In The Sense That The Parts Of The Body Or Of Any Other Divisible Whole Are Distinct, Or Whether Though Distinguishable In Thought As Two They Are Inseparable In Reality, Like The Convex And Concave Of A Curve, Is A Question Of No Importance For The Matter In Hand.)

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.

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.

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.

Between Friends There Is No Need Of Justice.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

The Form Of Government Is A Democracy When The Free, Who Are Also Poor And The Majority, Govern, And An Oligarchy When The Rich And The Noble Govern, They Being At The Same Time Few In Number.

The Angry Man Wishes The Object Of His Anger To Suffer In Return; Hatred Wishes Its Object Not To Exist.

To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn

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. If He Finds Himself An Individual Who Cannot Live In Society, Or Who Pretends He Has Need Of Only His Own Resources Do Not Consider Him As A Member Of Humanity; He Is A Savage Beast Or A God.

For Legislators Make The Citizens Good By Forming Habits In Them, And This Is The Wish Of Every Legislator, And Those Who Do Not Effect It Miss Their Mark, And It Is In This That A Good Constitution Differs From A Bad One.

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.

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 Right Constitutions, Three In Number- Kingship, Aristocracy, And Polity- And The Deviations From These, Likewise Three In Number - Tyranny From Kingship, Oligarchy From Aristocracy, Democracy From Polity.

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

Bring Your Desires Down To Your Present Means. Increase Them Only When Your Increased Means Permit.

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

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

Lacking Something

Talent Is Culture With Insolence.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

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.

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

The Specific Excellence Of Verbal Expression In Poetry Is To Be Clear Without Being Low.

The Excellence Of A Thing Is Related To Its Proper Function.

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

Art Not Only Imitates Nature, But Also Completes Its Deficiencies.

The Intelligence Consists Not Only In The Knowledge But Also In The Skill To Apply The Knowledge Into Practice.

All Earthquakes And Disasters Are Warnings; There’s Too Much Corruption In The World

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

Friendship Is A Single Soul Dwelling In Two Bodies.

Hippocrates Is An Excellent Geometer But A Complete Fool In Everyday Affairs.

If The Poor, For Example, Because They Are More In Number, Divide Among Themselves The Property Of The Rich,- Is Not This Unjust? . . This Law Of Confiscation Clearly Cannot Be Just.

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

Governments Which Have A Regard To The Common Interest Are Constituted In Accordance With Strict Principles Of Justice, And Are Therefore True Forms; But Those Which Regard Only The Interest Of The Rulers Are All Defective And Perverted Forms, For They Are Despotic, Whereas A State Is A Community Of Freemen.

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

So That The Lover Of Myths, Which Are A Compact Of Wonders, Is By The Same Token A Lover Of Wisdom.

Now The Soul Of Man Is Divided Into Two Parts, One Of Which Has A Rational Principle In Itself, And The Other, Not Having A Rational Principle In Itself, Is Able To Obey Such A Principle. And We Call A Man In Any Way Good Because He Has The Virtues Of These Two Parts.

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