The ultimate end...is not knowledge, but action. To be half right on time may be more important than to obtain the whole truth too late.

For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.

The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection are that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.

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

We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses - in short, from fewer premises.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of the dissimilar.

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.