Character is determined by choice, not opinion.

It is also in the interests of a tyrant to make his subjects poo...the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.

All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.

It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.

...in this way the structure of the universe- I mean, of the heavens and the earth and the whole world- was arranged by one harmony through the blending of the most opposite principles.

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.

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.