Aristotle
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.Collection: Good Life
Victory is plesant, not only to those who love to conquer, bot to all; for there is produced an idea of superiority, which all with more or less eagerness desire.Collection: Pride
The beginning, as the proverb says, is half the whole.Collection: Half
It is their character indeed that makes people who they are. But it is by reason of their actions that they are happy or the reverse.Collection: Character
Knowing what is right does not make a sagacious man.Collection: Wisdom
A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.Collection: Philosophical
Human beings are curious by nature.Collection: Educational
As our acts vary, our habits will follow in their course.Collection: Habit
Suppose, then, that all men were sick or deranged, save one or two of them who were healthy and of right mind. It would then be the latter two who would be thought to be sick and deranged and the former not!Collection: Men
A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.Collection: Democracy
A friend is a second self.Collection: Life
One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.Collection: Children
For what is the best choice for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.Collection: Inspirational
The soul is the form of the bodyCollection: Soul
Education and morals will be found almost the whole that goes to make a good man.Collection: Education
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.Collection: Happy Life
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.Collection: Running
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.Collection: Order
There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.Collection: Funny
Every man should be responsible to others, nor should anyone be allowed to do just as he pleases; for where absolute freedom is allowed there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man. But the principle of responsibility secures that which is the greatest good in states; the right persons rule and are prevented from doing wrong, and the people have their due. It is evident that this is the best kind of democracy, and why? because the people are drawn from a certain class.Collection: Responsibility
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.Collection: Greatness
The continuum is that which is divisible into indivisibles that are infinitely divisible.Collection: Continuum
Pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.Collection: Teaching
A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies.Collection: Enemy
Law is order, and good law is good order.Collection: Order
Every great genius has an admixture of madness.Collection: Genius
It will contribute towards one's object, who wishes to acquire a facility in the gaining of knowledge, to doubt judiciously.Collection: Doubt
We, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion.Collection: Science
The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.Collection: Beautiful
Distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it.Collection: Long Distance Relationship
[Meanness] is more ingrained in man's nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Education
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.Collection: Change
Speeches are like babies-easy to conceive but hard to deliver.Collection: Baby
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.Collection: Integrity
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.Collection: Would Be
Shipping magnate of the 20th century If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.Collection: Money
Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.Collection: Philosophical
The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them.Collection: Spiritual
Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions — what we do — that we are happy or the reverse.Collection: Writing
The principle aim of gymnastics is the education of all youth and not simply that minority of people highly favored by nature.Collection: Gymnastics
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.Collection: Pain
Finally, if nothing can be truly asserted, even the following claim would be false, the claim that there is no true assertion.Collection: Would Be
These two rational faculties may be designated the Scientific Faculty and the Calculative Faculty respectively; since calculation is the same as deliberation, and deliberation is never exercised about things that are invariable, so that the Calculative Faculty is a separate part of the rational half of the soul.Collection: Two
Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.Collection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Moving
The citizens begin by giving up some part of the constitution, and so with greater ease the government change something else which is a little more important, until they have undermined the whole fabric of the state.Collection: Giving Up
Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.Collection: Art
In part, art completes what nature cannot elaborate; and in part it imitates nature.Collection: Art