When Quarrels And Complaints Arise, It Is

Some Things The Legislator Must Find Ready To His Hand In A State, Others He Must Provide. And Therefore We Can Only Say: May Our State Be Constituted In Such A Manner As To Be Blessed With The Goods Of Which Fortune Disposes (for We Acknowledge Her Power): Whereas Virtue And Goodness In The State Are Not A Matter Of Chance But The Result Of Knowledge And Purpose. A City Can Be Virtuous Only When The Citizens Who Have A Share In The Government Are Virtuous, And In Our State All The Citizens Share In The Government.

Some Vices Miss What Is Right Because They Are Deficient, Others Because They Are Excessive, In Feelings Or In Actions, While Virtue Finds And Chooses The Mean.

Men Become Builders By Building And Lyreplayers By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

Pleasure Causes Us To Do Base Actions And Pain Causes Us To Abstain From Doing Noble Actions.

Those Who Have The Command Of The Arms In A Country Are Masters Of The State, And Have It In Their Power To Make What Revolutions They Please. [thus,] There Is No End To Observations On The Difference Between The Measures Likely To Be Pursued By A Minister Backed By A Standing Army, And Those Of A Court Awed By The Fear Of An Armed People.