The virtues [moral excellence] therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive them, and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.

Teaching is the highest form of understanding.

When the storytelling goes bad in a society, the result is decadence.

One citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.

Character is determined by choice, not opinion.

Why do men seek honour? Surely in order to confirm the favorable opinion they have formed of themselves.

Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.