Great Throughts Treasury

"The soul is present with us as much while we are asleep as while we are awake; and, while waking resembles active observation, sleep resembles the implicit though not exercised possession of knowledge."

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

"The greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity."

"The poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen… Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars."

"The life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well."

"The soul must necessarily be a real substance, as the form which determines a natural body, possessed potentially of life."

"True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods."

"There is no more important element in the formation of a virtuous character than a rightly directed sense of pleasure and dislike; for pleasure and pain are coextensive with life, and they exercise a powerful influence in promoting virtue and happiness in life."

"Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well."

"Virtue, like art, constantly deals with what is hard to do, and the harder the task the better success."

"What we learn to do, we learn by doing."

"We become what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not a single act but a habit!”"

"Where we are free to act, we are also free to refrain from acting, and where we are able to say No, we are also able to say Yes."

"Wherever I go, there I am."

"Wealth obviously is not the good we seek, for the sole purpose it serves is to provide the means for getting something else, pleasure, virtue and honor would have better title to be considered the good for they are to be desired for their account."

"Anonymous: How should we behave to friends? Aristotle: As we should wish them to behave to us."

"Wonder implies the desire to learn."

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."

"The brave man is the man who faces or fears the right thing for the right purpose in the right manner at the right moment."

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

"From good parents comes a good son."

"Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient."

"Happiness depends upon ourselves."

"Happiness [is] prosperity combined with virtue."

"Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements, but in virtuous activities."

"Teachers, who educate children, deserve more honor than parents, who merely gave them birth; for the latter provided mere life, while the former ensure a good life."

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than he who overcomes his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self."

"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."

"The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold."

"In the arena of human life, the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action."

"It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions."

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet."

"To leave the number of births unrestricted, as is done in most states, inevitably causes poverty among the citizens, and poverty produces faction and crime."

"Men’s ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice."

"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."

"Not pleasure, but freedom from pain, is what the wise man will aim at."

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."

"The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think."

"Aristotle - Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit."

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

"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

"The ultimate value of life depends on awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival."