We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

Most people would rather give than get affection.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

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.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

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

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

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

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

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

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

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

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

Piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.