There is nothing grand or noble in having the use of a slave, in so far as he is a slave; or in issuing commands about necessary things. But it is an error to suppose that every sort of rule is despotic like that of a master over slaves, for there is as great a difference between the rule over freemen and the rule over slaves as there is between slavery by nature and freedom by nature . .

Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.

The virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.

Music directly represents the passions of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Beauty is a gift of God.

So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean.