Moral qualities are so constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency . . .

Dissimilarity of habit tends more than anything to destroy affection.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

The mass of mankind are evidently slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts.

Some men turn every quality or art into a means of making money; this they conceive to be the end, and to the promotion of the end all things must contribute.

The purpose of the present study is not as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of knowledge, we are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, else there would be no advantage in studying it. For that reason, it becomes necessary to examine the problem of our actions and to ask how they are to be performed. For as we have said, the actions determine what kind of characteristics are developed.

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.