Aristotle

In educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain

Art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning.

Those who are not angry at the things they should be angry at are thought to be fools, and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right persons.

Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued withthe same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.

The true nature of anything is what it becomes at its highest.

Pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.

Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain.

They should rule who are able to rule best.

In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.

The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.

Men in general desire the good and not merely what their fathers had.

Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions — what we do — that we are happy or the reverse.

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity.

So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency.

Happiness, then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.

Happiness itself is sufficient excuse. Beautiful things are right and true; so beautiful actions are those pleasing to the gods. Wise men have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it. The answer to the last appeal of what is right lies within a man's own breast. Trust thyself.

for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use

Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

Humility is a flower which does not grow in everyone's garden.

What soon grows old? Gratitude.