A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.

If then nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of them for the sake of man.

Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them - it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort - but actions which aim at honor and advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life.

It is the repeated performance of just and temperate actions that produces virtue.

One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect at the same time.

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

To die in order to avoid the pains of poverty, love, or anything that is disagreeable, is not the part of a brave man, but of a coward.