Ethics and Morality

I don't think we shall quarrel about a word the subject of our inquiry is too important for that.

You know that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

You should not honor men more than truth.

He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.

He that lendeth to another in time of prosperity, shall never want help himself in the time of adversity.

He could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse

Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees.

Great crimes and pure evil come only from vigorous natures perverted by upbringing; a weak nature never does anything great, good or evil.

God is the cause only of good.

Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent", in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly".

Evil is more opposed to the good than to the no-good.

Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.

Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.

Excellence must be the health and wellbeing of the soul.

Each person must tend to the business that accords with his nature.

Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them? people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.

Doesn’t it follow that a ship’s captain or ruler won’t seek and order what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to a sailor?.. No one in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, seeks or orders what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his subjects; the ones of whom he is himself the craftsman. It is to his subjects and what is advantageous and proper to them that he looks, and everything he says and does he says and does for them.

Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul

By harming a horse, you decrease his excellence. Thus, by harming a person, you decrease their excellence.

Certainly we shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find someone who will help in some way or other to improve us.

Between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.