Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; . . . it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of the dissimilar.

Virtue also depends on ourselves. And so also does vice. For where we are free to act we are also free to refrain from acting, and where we are able to say No we are also able to say Yes; if therefore we are responsible for doing a thing when to do it right, we are also responsible for not doing it when not to do it is wrong, and if we are responsible for rightly not doing a thing, we are also responsible for wrongly doing it.

... the science we are after is not about mathematicals either none of them, you see, is separable.

So we must lay it down that the association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions.

Some men turn every quality or art into a means of making money; this they conceive to be the end, and to the promotion of the end all things must contribute.

The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry and limitations; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.