"Excellence is not an art. It is the habit of practice."
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Aristotle quotes (page 28 of 64)
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"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."
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"Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions — what we do — that we are happy or the reverse."
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"There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness."
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"One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name."
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"Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies."
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"Happiness depends on ourselves."
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"Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia."
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"Purpose is a desire for something in our own power, coupled with an investigation into its means."
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"...one Greek city state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged."
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". . . the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's."
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"It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong."
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"No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it."
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"The bad man is continually at war with, and in opposition to, himself."
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"To let them share in the highest offices is to take a risk; inevitably, their unjust standards will cause them to commit injustice, and their lack of judgement will lead them into error. On the other hand there is a risk in not giving them a share, and in their non participation, for when there are many who have no property and no honours they inevitably constitute a huge hostile element in the state. But it can still remain open to them to participate in deliberating and judging."
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"A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character."
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"The ensouled is distinguished from the unsouled by its being alive. Now since being alive is spoken of in many ways, even if only one of these is present, we say that the thing is alive, if, for instance, there is intellect or perception or spatial movement and rest or indeed movement connected with nourishment and growth and decay. It is for this reason that all the plants are also held to be alive . . ."
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"The goal of war is peace, of business, leisure"
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"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."
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"Now the goodness that we have to consider is clearly human goodness, since the good or happiness which we set out to seek was human good and human happiness. But human goodness means in our view excellence of soul, not excellence of body."
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