Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. 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.

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

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

Criticism is something you can easily avoid — by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

One swallow does not make a summer,neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.

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

Yes the truth is that men’s ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice.

…happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves…. The...

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

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.

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

It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of the poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor....

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain.

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

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

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.

And further, observing that all this indeterminate substance is in motion, and that no true predication can be made of that which changes, they supposed that it is impossible to make any true statement about...

It is a part of probability that many improbabilities will happen.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

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...

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.

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

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

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

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

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

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

It is also in the interests of the tyrant to make his subjects poor… the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

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.

The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little.

They are fond of fun and therefore witty, wit being well-bred insolence.

I have gained this by philosophy … I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law.

Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

He who can be, and therefore is, another’s, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

If, however, the poetic end might have been as well or better attained without sacrifice of technical correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be justified, since the description should be, if it...

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

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

We shall learn the qualities of governments in the same way as we learn the qualities of individuals, since they are revealed in their deliberate acts of choice; and these are determined by the end...