Quotes to inspire and reflect

Man is by nature a political animal.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

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

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.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

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.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

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.

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

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

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.

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

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

All men by nature desire knowledge.

The soul never thinks without a picture.

The law is reason, free from passion.

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

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

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.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, 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.

Education is the best provision for old age.

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

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

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.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

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.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Change in all things is sweet.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

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.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.