Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
...perhaps there is some element of good even in the simple act of living, so long as the evils of existence do not preponderate too heavily.
So we must lay it down that the association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions.
No man of high and generous spirit is ever willing to indulge in flattery; the good may feel affection for others, but will not flatter them.
Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage.
Excellence or virtue in a man will be the disposition which renders him a good man and also which will cause him to perform his function well.
Now all orators effect their demonstrative proofs by allegation either of enthymems or examples, and, besides these, in no other way whatever.
Such an event is probable in Agathon's sense of the word: 'it is probable,' he says, 'that many things should happen contrary to probability.'
Each human being is bred with a unique set of potentials that yearn to be fulfilled as surely as the acorn yearns to become the oak within it.
If then nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of them for the sake of man.
If you see a man approaching with the obvious intent of doing you good, run for your life. Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
In painting, the most brilliant colors, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure.
People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just.
Leisure of itself gives pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life, which are experienced, not by the busy man, but by those who have leisure.
No democracy can exist unless each of its citizens is as capable of outrage at injustice to another as he is of outrage at unjustice to himself.
To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.
Marriage is like retiring as a bachelor and getting a sexual pension. You don't have to work for the sex any more, but you only get 65% as much.
He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.
No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise.
Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.
People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.
Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble: for instance those who have made money love money more than those who have inherited it.
He who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honor will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude.
We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.
What is common to many is least taken care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than what they possess in common with others.
A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.
Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself.
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.
[this element], the seat of the appetites and of desire in general, does in a sense participate in principle, as being amenable and obedient to it
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.
Perhaps here we have a clue to the reason why royal rule used to exist formerly, namely the difficulty of finding enough men of outstanding virtue.
The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.
Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.
If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.
All food must be capable of being digested, and that what produces digestion is warmth; that is why everything that has soul in it possesses warmth.
A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite conditions
Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.
But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, - is this just?
We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses - in short, from fewer premises.
A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.
Long-lived persons have one or two lines which extend through the whole hand; short-lived persons have two lines not extending through the whole hand.
We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.
It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.
While those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.
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.
A period may be defined as a portion of speech that has in itself a beginning and an end, being at the same time not too big to be taken in at a glance
He then alone will strictly be called brave who is fearless of a noble death, and of all such chances as come upon us with sudden death in their train.
It is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are energeia [energy], while others are products which are additional to the energeia.
In all things which have a plurality of parts, and which are not a total aggregate but a whole of some sort distinct from the parts, there is some cause.