The first essential responsibility of the state is control of the market-place: there must be some official charged with the duty of seeing that honest dealing and good order prevail. For one of the well-nigh essential activities of all states is the buying and selling of goods to meet their mutual basic needs; this is the quickest way to self-sufficiency, which seems to be what moves men to combine under a single constitution.

No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise.

Tragedy is an imitation not of men but of a life, an action

Men come together in cities in order to live: they remain together in order to live the good life

... There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

Some men are just as sure of the truth of their opinions as are others of what they know.