Now, the causes being four, it is the business of the student of nature to know about them all, and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will assign the “why” in the way proper to his science-the matter, the form, the mover, that for the sake of which.
In painting, the most brilliant colors, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure.
The line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive.
Of mankind in general, the parts are greater than the whole.
Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil and, if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty.
What soon grows old? Gratitude.
Quitting smoking is rather a marathon than a sprint. It is not a one-time attempt, but a longer effort.
Life is full of chances and changes, and the most prosperous of men may in the evening of his days meet with great misfortunes.
Humility is a flower which does not grow in everyone’s garden.
Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.
Happiness is the highest good.
The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them.
Happiness, then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.
No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.
Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once, and so there will be no unity and completeness.
And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war.
So it is naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.
But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.
It is clear that the earth does not move, and that it does not lie elsewhere than at the center.
Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?