Aristotle

The good of man is the active exercise of his souls 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.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another not because he does not feel them but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.

A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.

He who hath many friends hath none.

Tis the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied and most men live only for the gratification of it.

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

The eyes of some persons are large, others small, and others of a moderate size; the last-mentioned are the best. And some eyes are projecting, some deep-set, and some moderate, and those which are deep-set have the most acute vision in all animals; the middle position is a sign of the best disposition.

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

Nobility and worth are to be found only among the few, but their opposite among the many; for there is not one man of merit and high spirit in a hundred, while there are many destitute of both to be found everywhere.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.

The democrats think that as they are equal they ought to be equal in all things.

It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

Hope is the dream of a waking man.

It is just that we should be grateful not only to those with whose views we may agree but also to those who have expressed more superficial views for these also contributed something by developing before us the powers of thought.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Distance does not break off the friendship absolutely but only the activity of it.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

Being a father is the most rewarding thing a man whose career has plateaued can do.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

The first principle of all action is leisure.

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

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.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.

It is the characteristic of the magnanimous man to ask no favor but to be ready to do kindness to others.

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.

Fate of empires depends on the education of youth.

The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.

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.

The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.

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.

A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

To give away money is an easy matter and in any mans power. But to decide to whom to give it and how large and when and for what purpose and how is neither in every mans power nor an easy matter.

We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

The best way to avoid envy is to deserve the success you get.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace making the best of circumstances.

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god.

It is the repeated performance of just and temperate actions that produces virtue.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

Distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

Hope is a waking dream.

Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

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.

Tragedy is a representation of action that is worthy of serious attention, complete in itself and of some magnitude bringing about by means of pity and fear the purging of such emotions.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

To the sober person adventurous conduct often seems insanity.

All proofs rest on premises.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

At his best man is the noblest of all animals separated from law and justice he is the worst.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

Wit is educated insolence.

Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

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.

Change in all things is sweet.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way . . . you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

Happiness depends on ourselves.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

There is only one way to avoid criticism do nothing say nothing and be nothing.

He who on conviction does and pursues and chooses what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as a result not of calculation but of incontinence for he is easier to cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind.

Most people would rather give than get affection.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

There is no great genius withou some touch of madness.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

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.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.