Those who believe that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.

The form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.

Man is by nature a political animal.

The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties. This exercise must occupy a complete lifetime. One swallow does make a spring, nor does one fine day. Excellence is a habit, not an event.

Courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible.

As the pleasures of the body are the ones which we most often meet with, and as all men are capable of these, these have usurped the family title; and some men think these are the only pleasures that exist, because they are the only ones which they know.

We are what we repeatedly do.