 Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal. |
| The secret to humor is surprise. |
| Hope is a waking dream. |
| 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. |
| I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. |
| It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought. |
| Man is by nature a political animal. |
| It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully. |
| 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. |
| It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. |
| He who hath many friends hath none. |
| We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time. |
| 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. |
| Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. |
| Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age. |
| The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more. |
| All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. |
| The soul never thinks without a picture. |
| There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. |
| We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action. |
