In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.

Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them.

Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.

And this lies in the nature of things: What people are potentially is revealed in actuality by what they produce.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.

The best friend is he that, when he wishes a person's good, wishes it for that person's own sake.