Aristotle
A change in the shape of the body creates a change in the state of the soul.Collection: Soul
Tools may be animate as well as inanimate; for instance, a ship's captain uses a lifeless rudder, but a living man for watch; for a servant is, from the point of view of his craft, categorized as one of its tools. So any piece of property can be regarded as a tool enabling a man to live, and his property is an assemblage of such tools; a slave is a sort of living piece of property; and like any other servant is a tool in charge of other tools.Collection: Men
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.Collection: Character
The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.Collection: Philosophy
The End is included among goods of the soul, and not among external goods.Collection: Soul
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.Collection: Men
Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes.Collection: Art
Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain.Collection: Nature
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.Collection: Peace
In bad or corrupted natures the body will often appear to rule over the soul, because they are in an evil and unnatural condition. At all events we may firstly observe in living creatures both a despotical and a constitutional rule; for the soul rules the body with a despotical rule, whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and royal rule. And it is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is natural and expedient; whereas the equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful.Collection: Two
All men seek one goal: success or happiness.Collection: Men
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.Collection: War
Friends are much better tried in bad fortune than in good.Collection: Friends
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.Collection: Knowledge
Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued withthe same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.Collection: Music
It is the characteristic of the magnanimous man to ask no favor but to be ready to do kindness to others.Collection: Spiritual
Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine ACTIONS than in the non-performance of base ones.Collection: Business
Music imitates (represents) the passions or states of the soul, such as gentleness, anger, courage, temperance, and their opposites.Collection: Passion
The greatest threat to the state is not faction but distractionCollection: Distraction
If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.Collection: Happiness
Of governments there are said to be only two forms - democracy and oligarchy. For aristocracy is considered to be a kind of oligarchy, as being the rule of a few, and the so-called constitutional government to be really a democracy.Collection: Two
A government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.Collection: Class
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Happiness
There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the state: - Is it the multitude? Or the wealthy? Or the good? Or the one best man? Or a tyrant?Collection: Men
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.Collection: Mind
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.Collection: Two
If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.Collection: Moving
Tragedy is an imitation not of men but of a life, an actionCollection: Men
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.Collection: Doe
There is no such thing as committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, for it is simply WRONG.Collection: Way
Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible.Collection: Opposites
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.Collection: Government
The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor.Collection: Style
A brave man is clear in his discourse, and keeps close to truth.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Science
He who confers a benefit on anyone loves him better than he is beloved.Collection: Benefits
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Common
There must be in prudence also some master virtue.Collection: Virtue
Greed has no boundariesCollection: Greed
In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.Collection: Law
Thus then a single harmony orders the composition of the whole...by the mingling of the most contrary principles.Collection: Order
Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.Collection: Animal
This body is not a home, but an inn; and that only for a short time. Seneca Friendship is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.Collection: Home
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.Collection: Block
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.Collection: Education
Happiness is a sort of action.Collection: Happiness
For through wondering human beings now and in the beginning have been led to philosophizing.Collection: Wonder