Property should be in a general sense common, but as a general rule private... In well-ordered states, although every man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use of them.

Each human being is bred with a unique set of potentials that yearn to be fulfilled as surely as the acorn yearns to become the oak within it.

It is the activity of the intellect that constitutes complete human happiness - provided it be granted a complete span of life, for nothing that belongs to happiness can be incomplete.

Virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.

And inasmuch as the great-souled man deserves most, he must be the best of men; for the better a man is the more he deserves, and he that is best deserves most. Therefore the truly great-souled man must be a good man. Indeed greatness in each of the virtues would seem to go with greatness of soul.

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. Those who contribute most to this kind of association are for that very reason entitled to a larger share in the state than those who, though they may be equal or even superior in free birth and in family, are inferior in the virtue that belongs to a citizen. Similarly they are entitled to a larger share than those who are superior in riches but inferior in virtue.

We must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils.