There are branches of learning and education which we must study merely with a view to leisure spent in intellectual activity, and these are to be valued for their own sake; whereas those kinds of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary, and exist for the sake of other things.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

He who is by nature not his own but another's man is by nature a slave.

Metaphor is halfway between the unintelligible and the commonplace.

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

The man who confers a favour would rather not be repaid in the same coin.