The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

He who hath many friends hath none.

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

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

The gods too are fond of a joke.

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

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Wit is educated insolence.

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.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

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.

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.

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.

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