In educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain
...The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest.
Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when every one has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business.
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state, especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government.
Meanness is incurable; it cannot be cured by old age, or by anything else.
Injustice results as much from treating unequals equally as from treating equals unequally.
Rising before daylight is also to be commended; it is a healthy habit, and gives more time for the management of the household as well as for liberal studies.
Good moral character is not something that we can achieve on our own. We need a culture that supports the conditions under which self-love and friendship flourish.
It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.
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.
Metaphor is halfway between the unintelligible and the commonplace.
No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries.
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
Think as the wise men think, but talk like the simple people do.
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.
It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous.
So that the lover of myths, which are a compact of wonders, is by the same token a lover of wisdom.
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 have the most acute vision in all animals; the middle position is a sign of the best disposition.
It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.
The young are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.
The actuality of thought is life.
That body is heavier than another which, in an equal bulk, moves downward quicker.
They - Young People have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things - and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning - all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything - they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.
We laugh at that which we cannot bear to face.
Man is by nature a political animal.
It is no easy task to be good.
A body in motion can maintain this motion only if it remains in contact with a mover.
To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.
Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
The body is most fully developed from thirty to thirty-five years of age, the mind at about forty-nine.
The proof that you know something is that you are able to teach it
Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.
The first principle of all action is leisure.
A gentleman is not disturbed by anything
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
Philosophy is the science which considers truth.
And this lies in the nature of things: What people are potentially is revealed in actuality by what they produce.
The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge.
The ridiculous is produced by any defect that is unattended by pain, or fatal consequences; thus, an ugly and deformed countenance does not fail to cause laughter, if it is not occasioned by pain.
Man by Nature desires to know.
The intelligence consists not only in the knowledge but also in the skill to apply the knowledge into practice.
Those who merely possess the goods of fortune may be haughty and insolent; . . . they try to imitate the great-souled man without being really like him, and only copy him in what they can, reproducing his contempt for others but not his virtuous conduct. For the great-souled man is justified in despising other people - his estimates are correct; but most proud men have no good ground for their pride.
Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them.
There is no genius who hasn't a touch of insanity.
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character.
Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump!
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.
Evidence from torture may be considered completely untrustworthy
I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.
Teenagers these days are out of control. They eat like pigs, they are disrespectful of adults, they interrupt and contradict their parents, and they terrorize their teachers.
We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends behave to us
Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
Wickedness is nourished by lust.
The worst thing about slavery is that the slaves eventually get to like it.
