For as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions; but they will not so soon flow from anything else as from the disagreement between virtue and vice, and next to that between poverty and riches.

Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; . . . it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything.

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

If the consequences are the same it is always better to assume the more limited antecedent, since in things of nature the limited, as being better, is sure to be found, wherever possible, rather than the unlimited.

To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.

It is the active exercise of our faculties in conformity with virtue that causes happiness, and the opposite activities its opposite.

Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.