A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Evils draw men together.

It is not easy for a person to do any great harm when his tenure of office is short, whereas long possession begets tyranny.

. .we would have to say that hereditary succession is harmful. You may say the king, having sovereign power, will not in that case hand over to his children. But it is hard to believe that: it is a difficult achievement, which expects too much virtue of human nature.

The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection are that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.

For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of the Poet; while the other should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet.

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.