The Whole Is More Than The Sum

Those That Deem Politics Beneath Their Dignity Are Doomed To Be Governed By Those Of Lesser Talents.

For Even They Who Compose Treatises Of Medicine Or Natural Philosophy In Verse Are Denominated Poets: Yet Homer And Empedocles Have Nothing In Common Except Their Metre; The Former, Therefore, Justly Merits The Name Of The Poet; While The Other Should Rather Be Called A Physiologist Than A Poet.

Excellence Or Virtue Is A Settled Disposition Of The Mind That Determines Our Choice Of Actions And Emotions And Consists Essentially In Observing The Mean Relative To Us ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Which Depends On Excess And That Which Depends On Defect.

All Are Agreed That The Various Moral Qualities Are In A Sense Bestowed By Nature: We Are Just, And Capable Of Temperance, And Brave, And Possessed Of The Other Virtues From The Moment Of Our Birth. But Nevertheless We Expect To Find That True Goodness Is Something Different, And That The Virtues In The True Sense Come To Belong To Us In Another Way. For Even Children And Wild Animals Possess The Natural Dispositions, Yet Without Intelligence These May Manifestly Be Harmful.

Men Acquire A Particular Quality By Constantly Acting In A Particular Way.