Man is by nature a political animal.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

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

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.