To the size of the state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals and implements, for none of these retain their facility when they are too large.

Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

It is evident, then, that there is a sort of education in which parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary, but because it is liberal or noble.

It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.

A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave... The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities - a natural defectiveness.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

[this element], the seat of the appetites and of desire in general, does in a sense participate in principle, as being amenable and obedient to it