Aristotle

Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.

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

Those who cannot face danger like men are the slaves of any invader.

Subjects are also kept poor by payment of taxes.

It is also in the interests of a tyrant to make his subjects poor, so that he may be able to afford the cost of his bodyguard, while the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.

For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.... Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such... Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos: Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health; but pleasantest is it to win what we love.

Any one can get angry — that is easy — or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.

The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.

The wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

"It is impossible for the same attribute at once to belong and not to belong to the same thing and in the same relation"; and we must add any further qualifications that may be necessary to meet logical objections. This is the most certain of principles, since it possesses the required definition; for it is impossible for anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not, as some imagine that Heraclitus says.

Change in all things is sweet.