Every formed disposition of the soul realizes its full nature in relation to and dealing with that class of objects by which it is its nature to be corrupted or improved.
We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.
We have next to consider the formal definition of virtue.
Greatness of Soul seems therefore to be as it were a crowning ornament of the virtues; it enhances their greatness, and it cannot exist without them. Hence it is hard to be truly great-souled, for greatness of soul is impossible without moral nobility.
The high-minded man is fond of conferring benefits, but it shames him to receive them.
No state will be well administered unless the middle class holds sway.
If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.
Something is infinite if, taking it quantity by quantity, we can always take something outside.
Rising before daylight is also to be commended; it is a healthy habit, and gives more time for the management of the household as well as for liberal studies.
Speeches are like babies-easy to conceive but hard to deliver.
All art is concerned with coming into being.
In justice, all virtues are found in sum.
Our problem is not that we aim too high and miss, but that we aim too low and hit.
Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.
Peace is more difficult than war.
The senses are gateways to the intelligence. There is nothing in the intelligence which did not first pass through the senses.
We become just by the practice of just actions.
And this lies in the nature of things: What people are potentially is revealed in actuality by what they produce.
There is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom.