Our first presupposition must be that in nature nothing acts on, or is acted on by, any other thing at random, nor may anything come from anything else, unless we mean that it does so in virtue of a concomitant attribute.

At the Olympic Games, it isn't the most beautiful or strongest who are crowned, but those who compete.

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

The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the polis, and must therefore be either a beast or a god.

Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear.

Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

To seek for utility everywhere is entirely unsuited to men that are great-souled and free.