Wise people have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it.

Excellence or virtue is a settled disposition of the mind that determines our choice of actions and emotions and consists essentially in observing the mean relative to us ... a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.

The intention makes the crime.

All men desire by nature to know.

[Meanness] is more ingrained in man's nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed.

All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves...

The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness.