So poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history, for while poetry is concerned with universal truth, history treats of particular facts.

A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude … by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions.

We make war that we may live in peace.

Every art and every investigation, and likewise every practical pursuit or undertaking, seems to aim at some good: hence it has been well said that the Good is That at which all things aim.

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue … Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.

Whenever anything which has several parts is such that the whole is something over and above its parts, and not just the sum of them all, like a heap, then it always has some cause.

A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.

The greatest thing in style is to have command of metaphor.

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.