Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

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

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The eyes of some persons are large, others small, and others of a moderate size; the last-mentioned are the best. And some eyes are projecting, some deep-set, and some moderate, and those which are deep-set have the most acute vision in all animals; the middle position is a sign of the best disposition.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

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.

He who can be, and therefore is, another’s, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Long-lived persons have one or two lines which extend through the whole hand; short-lived persons have two lines not extending through the whole hand.

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

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.