Santorini, Greece - 2006
1. "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."
2. “All men by nature desire to know.”
3. “Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not easy.”
4. "A person who cannot live in society, or does not need to because he is self-sufficient, is either a beast or a god."
5. "A plausible impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility."
6. ”Art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning. All art is concerned with coming into being ... for art is concerned neither with things that are, or come into being, by necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance with nature.”
7. “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”
8. “A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end.”
9. “Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”
10. “Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead.”
11. “Education is an ornament in prosperity, and a refuge in adversity.”
12. "Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal."
13. "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
14. “Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.”
15. "For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve."
16. “Generally, about all perception, we can say that a sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet ring without the iron or gold.”
17. “Good has two meanings: it means both that which is good absolutely and that which is good for somebody.”
18. "Happiness is activity."
19. “Hope is a waking dream.”
20. “Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.”
21. "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."
22. “If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out.”
23. “I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.”
24. “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
25. "Inferiors agitate in order that they may be equal and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates party strife."
26. “It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.”
27. ”It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.”
28. “It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalised.”
29. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
30. “It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.”
31. "Liars when they speak the truth are not believed."
32. “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
33. “Melancholy men, of all others, are the most witty.”
34. “Memory is the scribe of the soul."
35. “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way...you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”
36. “Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.”
37. “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.”
38. “No one loves the man whom he fears.”
39. "Obstinate people may be subdivided into the opinionated, the ignorant and the boorish."
40. "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
41. “Poetry is more philosophical and of higher value than history; for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.”
42. “Poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.”
43. "Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
44. “That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.”
45. “The actuality of thought is life.”
46. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
47. “The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.”
48. “The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
49. “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”
50. "The energy of the mind is the essence of life."
51. “The gods too are fond of a joke.”
52. "The good has been well said to be that at which all things aim."
53. “The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.”
54. “The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.”
55. “The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think."
56. "The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold."
57. "The life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well."
58. "The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful."
59. “The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
60. "Therefore, even the lover of myth is in a sense a philosopher; for myth is composed of wonders."
61. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
62. “The secret to humor is surprise."
63. “The soul never thinks without a picture.”
64. “There is a cropping-time in the races of men, as in the fruits of the field; and sometimes, if the stock be good, there springs up for a time a succession of splendid men; and then comes a period of barrenness.”
65. "There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."
66. "The soul never thinks without a picture."
67. ”The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”
68. “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
69. “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
70. “Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear and pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will then be great than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design.”
71. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”
72. “We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace.”
73. “Well begun is half done."
74. "We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one."
75. “We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us.”
76. “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
77. "What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."
78. ”What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.”
79. “Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.”
80. "Wit is educated insolence."
81. “Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.”
