"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire"
"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"
"A true friend is one soul in two bodies"
"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"
"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 without the iron or gold"
"A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one"
"A friend to all is a friend to none"
"A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state"
"No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye"
"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own"
"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"No one loves the man whom he fears"
"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"
"We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action"
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
"To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill"
"Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last"
"Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so"
"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"
"Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach"
"Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics"
"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme"
"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit"
"What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions"
"There is no great genius without a mixture of madness"
"Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms"
"The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication"
"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"
"The soul never thinks without a picture"
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet"
"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"
"For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first"
"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 whole is more than the sum of its parts"
"Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind"
"Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way"
"Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth"
"Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference"
"Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves"
"Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved"
"No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world"
"Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life"
"It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world"
"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"
"I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law"
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies"
"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"
