Aristotle

"For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first."

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."

"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."

"Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it."

"The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."

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

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

"Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art."

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."

"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."

"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."

"Bad men are full of repentance."

"Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence."

"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."

"Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers."

"Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity."

"For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all."

"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."

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost."

"If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way."

"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."

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."

"It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken."

"It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims."

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."

"Man is by nature a political animal."

"Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life."

"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own."

"My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake."

"Nature does nothing in vain."

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

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."

"Quality is not an act, it is a habit."

"The end of labor is to gain leisure."

"The energy of the mind is the essence of life."

"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."

"The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances."

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

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

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

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."

"Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics."

"To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill."

"We make war that we may live in peace."

"What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."

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