Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?

Knowing what is right does not make a sagacious man.

A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.

Friendship is two souls inhabiting one body.

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Nature creates nothing without a purpose.