from METAPHYSICS "Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree." from POLITICS "Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals revolt that they may be superior." "For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all, since armed injustice is the more dangerous, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, he is the most unholy and savage of all animals, and the worst of full of lust and gluttony." "That judges of important offices should hold office for life is not a good thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body." from NICOMACHEAN ETHICS "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." "For men are good in but one way, but bad in many." "Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate." |