A good character carries with it the highest power of causing a thing to be believed.

The only stable principle of government is equality according to proportion, and for every man to enjoy his own.

It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous.

To leave the number of births unrestricted, as is done in most states, inevitably causes poverty among the citizens, and poverty produces crime and faction.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

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.