We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Hope is a waking dream.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with complete and perfect virtue.

For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one sunny day; and so too one day or a short time does not make a man blessed and happy.

The good of man is a functioning of the soul in accordance with reason, or not without reason, and this functioning must be lifelong.

Happiness belongs to those who are self-sufficient.

The activity of philosophical contemplation is admittedly the pleasantest of all virtuous activities; its pleasure is marvelously pure and enduring.

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.

Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions.

Every craft and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

No one would choose a life of possessing all good things on condition of being solitary, for man is a social being and naturally disposed to live with others.

The truly good and prudent man bears all the chances of life with dignity and always does the best with what is available to him.

A life of mere sensual indulgence makes human beings slavish in their tastes, preferring the life of grazing cattle.

To live well is to act well; for happiness is not a possession, but an active practice.

The end of labor is to gain leisure, and the end of war is to cultivate peace.

Misfortune reveals those who are not really friends.

In the arena of human life, honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.

The life of money-making is a life of constraint, and wealth is clearly not the good we seek; for it is merely useful for the sake of something else.

We become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate acts, and brave by performing brave acts.

Even in the midst of misfortunes, nobility of soul shines forth when a man bears many heavy burdens with calm patience, not from lack of feeling, but from greatness of heart.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.

To appreciate the beauty of a day, one must have experienced the chill of the night.

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.

The best and most delightful thing for a man is to live in accordance with reason, for reason more than anything else is man.

Neither by nature nor contrary to nature do virtues arise in us; rather, we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, determined by rational principle.

In all things moderation is best; for excess and deficiency alike ruin virtue.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

The brave man is not he who feels no fear, but he who noble-mindedly faces that which is terrible.

It is easy to fly into a passion—anybody can do that; but to be angry with the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not easy.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit; we become what we do repeatedly.

Temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.

A generous person is one who gives to the right people, the right amounts, at the right times, and with pleasure.

The magnanimous person does not run into trifling dangers, but in great dangers he is unsparing of his life, knowing that there are terms on which life is not worth living.

Greatness of soul seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them.

It is the mark of an honorable man to remember benefits received, but to be reluctant to remember those he has conferred.

Self-indulgence is justly censured, because it belongs to us not as human beings, but as animals.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Shame is an ornament to the young, but a disgrace to the old.

Justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice is the principle of order in political society.

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

Without virtue, man is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony.

Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing the kind of things a man chooses or avoids.

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

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

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.

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

A true friend is someone who desires what is good for his companion for his companion's sake.

To be friends with many people in the way of perfect friendship is impossible, just as it is impossible to be in love with many people at once.

Between friends there is no need of justice, but people who are just still need the bond of friendship.

Distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it.

A friend to all is a friend to none.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge.

The antidote for fifty enemies is one true friend.

True friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, people cannot know each other until they have eaten the proverbial salt together.

The good man ought to be a lover of self, for by doing what is noble he will at once benefit himself and assist others.

To be loved is near to being honored, and honor is what most men covet; but true friendship is chosen for itself alone.

We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us.

Shared joys are doubled, while shared griefs are halved.

Friends hold a mirror up to each other; through the other, each sees his own soul.

The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake alone.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they still need friendship; and the highest form of justice seems to have the character of friendship.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain that they are their own, and because the bringing of them forth is more painful.

To perceive is to suffer; for to be conscious is to be touched by the friction of existence.

Friendship is an equality of loving, where each partner receives back what they bestow.

The presence of friends in misfortune is a complex thing; their sympathy relieves our grief, yet it pains us to see them grieving for our sake.

It is neither easy nor right to abandon a longstanding friendship that was grounded in virtue.

All men by nature desire to know.

It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Nature does nothing in vain.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

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

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man.

Law is reason, free from passion.

He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, through pity and fear effecting the catharsis of such emotions.

Truth and justice are by nature more powerful than their opposites; when the right cause is defeated, it is due to the fault of its defenders.

The soul never thinks without an image.

Change in all things is sweet, for our nature is not simple, but compound.

A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible.

Of all the means of persuasion, personal character is the most effective.

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

The secret to humor is surprise.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is ready, in great crises, to give even his life.

We make war that we may live in peace.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light of virtue.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

What you seek is seeking you.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.