The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

A friend to all is a friend to none.

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

All terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder—either no chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also...

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

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

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...

A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring...

Fame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise.

Happiness is a quality of the soul…not a function of one’s material circumstances.

Nature does nothing uselessly.

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a...

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

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.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions … The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.

All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings; there’s too much corruption in the world

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.

Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society.

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...

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

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

Man is by nature a political animal.

Again, it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when...

Philosophy can make people sick.

For there are two reasons why human beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it, or they may have means to deal with it: thus when in danger at sea people may...

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...

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

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.

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.

It is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habit

The gods too are fond of a joke.

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

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

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

The law is reason, free from passion.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e....

It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets tell us, ‘charm the crowd’s ears more finely.’ Educated men lay down broad general...

It is absurd to hold that a man should be ashamed of an inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not ashamed of an inability to defend himself with speech and reason; for the...

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly...

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

Nature does nothing in vain.

Hence intellect[ual perception] is both a beginning and an end, for the demonstrations arise from these, and concern them. As a result, one ought to pay attention to the undemonstrated assertions and opinions of experienced...