The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

A friend to all is a friend to none.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in...

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

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

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,...

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

For he who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if he does; and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways?

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

Democracy arose from men’s thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.

We must not listen to those who advise us ‘being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts’ but must put on immortality as much as possible and strain every nerve...

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

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.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play—which is the better way and shows the better poet....

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, ‘that the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live;...

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

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.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

Some [jests] are becoming to a gentleman, others are not; see that you choose such as become you. Irony better befits a gentleman than buffoonery; the ironical man jokes to amuse himself, the buffoon to...

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Happiness is activity of soul.

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true...

The soul never thinks without a picture.

Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent...

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of action.

Happiness is a state of activity.

To seek for utility everywhere is entirely unsuited to men that are great-souled and free.

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because life is sweet and they are growing.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

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.

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

The truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts one imitation is always of one thing, so in poetry the story, as an imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole,...

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.

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...

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act…