Aristotle

It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.

You'll understand what life is if you think about the act of dying. When I die, how will I be different from the way I am right now? In the first moments after death, my body will be scarcely different in physical terms than it was in the last seconds of life, but I will no longer move, no longer sense, nor speak, nor feel, nor care. It's these things that are life. At that moment, the psyche takes flight in the last breath.

In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interest are at stake.

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities.

If the consequences are the same it is always better to assume the more limited antecedent, since in things of nature the limited, as being better, is sure to be found, wherever possible, rather than the unlimited.

Such an event is probable in Agathon's sense of the word: 'it is probable,' he says, 'that many things should happen contrary to probability.'

Experience has shown that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a populous state to be run by good laws.

If you prove the cause, you at once prove the effect; and conversely nothing can exist without its cause.

The Eyes are the organs of temptation, and the Ears are the organs of instruction.

A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies.

A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

For the real difference between humans and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state.

Life cannot be lived, and understood, simultaneously.

It is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them.

Memory is the scribe of the soul.

The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms

Law is order, and good law is good order.

The specific excellence of verbal expression in poetry is to be clear without being low.