A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.
All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.
A man's happiness consists in the free exercise of his highest faculties.
Prayers and sacrifices are of no avail.
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.