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?

The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy.

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

... the friendship of worthless people has a bad effect (because they take part, unstable as they are, in worthless pursuits, and actually become bad through each other's influence). But the friendship of the good is good, and increases in goodness because of their association. They seem even to become better men by exercising their friendship and improving each other; for the traits that they admire in each other get transferred to themselves.

The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.