Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?

Only an armed people can be truly free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved.

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

The secret to humor is surprise.

When quarrels and complaints arise, it is when people who are equal have not got equal shares, or vice-versa.

Happiness belongs to the self sufficient.