The honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.

There is an error common to both oligarchies and to democracies: in the latter the demagogues, when the multitude are above the law, are always cutting the city in two by quarrels with the rich, whereas they should always profess to be maintaining their cause; just as in oligarchies the oligarchs should profess to maintain the cause of the people, . .

It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge?

We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means.

Anything whose presence or absence makes no discernible difference is no essential part of the whole.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.