If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen - thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.

There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness.

Self-sufficiency is both a good and an absolute good.

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

The appropriate age for marrige is around eighteen and thirty-seven for man

Here and elsewhere we shall not obtain the best insight into things until we actually see them growing from the beginning.

He is courageous who endures and fears the right thing, for the right motive, in the right way and at the right times.