Aristotle
If then nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of them for the sake of man.Collection: Men
Whether we call it sacrifice, or poetry, or adventure, it is always the same voice that calls.Collection: Adventure
But it is not at all certain that this superiority of the many over the sound few is possible in the case of every people and every large number. There are some whom it would be impossible: otherwise the theory would apply to wild animals- and yet some men are hardly any better than wild animals.Collection: Men
It is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.Collection: Science
Of means of persuading by speaking there are three species: some consist in the character of the speaker; others in the disposing the hearer a certain way; others in the thing itself which is said, by reason of its proving, or appearing to prove the point.Collection: Character
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.Collection: True Friend
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.Collection: Soul
All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge.Collection: Teaching
Art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning.Collection: Art
This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Happiness
In the works of Nature, purpose, not accident, is the main thing.Collection: Purpose
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.Collection: Thinking
To the sober person adventurous conduct often seems insanity.Collection: Climbing
The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness.Collection: Happiness
When...we, as individuals, obey laws that direct us to behave for the welfare of the community as a whole, we are indirectly helping to promote the pursuit of happiness by our fellow human beings.Collection: Pursuit Of Happiness
Our virtues are voluntary (and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral dispositions, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a certain kind), it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary in the same manner as our virtues.Collection: Character
...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.Collection: Mean
. .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.Collection: Kings
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.Collection: People
Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.Collection: Philosophical
In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.Collection: Writing
Art takes nature as its model.Collection: Art
The activity of happiness must occupy an entire lifetime; for one swallow does not a summer make.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Men
Those whose days are consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolties of fashion, unobservant of nature's lovelinessof demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.Collection: Fashion
The student of politics therefore as well as the psychologist must study the nature of the soul.Collection: Soul
Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.Collection: Thinking
And this lies in the nature of things: What people are potentially is revealed in actuality by what they produce.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Race
It is the activity of the intellect that constitutes complete human happiness - provided it be granted a complete span of life, for nothing that belongs to happiness can be incomplete.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Life
Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.Collection: Numbers
The body is most fully developed from thirty to thirty-five years of age, the mind at about forty-nine.Collection: Science
Revolutions are not about trifles, but spring from trifles.Collection: Spring
He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin ... will obtain the clearest view of them.Collection: Science
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.Collection: Philosophical
When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.Collection: Friendship
Justice is the loveliest and health is the best. but the sweetest to obtain is the heart's desire.Collection: Romantic
Great and frequent reverses can crush and mar our bliss both by the pain they cause and by the hindrance they offer to many activities. Yet nevertheless even in adversity nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.Collection: Crush
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.Collection: Thinking
It is not easy for a person to do any great harm when his tenure of office is short, whereas long possession begets tyranny.Collection: Long
Memory is therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember.Collection: Memories
Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.Collection: Funny
Law is mind without reason.Collection: Law
Happiness may be defined as good fortune joined to virtue, or a independence, or as a life that is both agreeable and secure.Collection: Happiness
The honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.Collection: Inspirational
The seat of the soul and the control of voluntary movement - in fact, of nervous functions in general, - are to be sought in the heart. The brain is an organ of minor importance.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Children