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S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Aristotle

Some men are so covetous as if they were to live forever; and others so profuse, as if they were to die the next moment.

Aristotle.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

Aristotle.

A king ruleth as he ought, a tyrant as he lists; a king to the profit of all, a tyrant only to please a few.

Aristotle.

If there were beings who lived in the depths of the earth, in dwellings adorned with statues and paintings, and everything which is possessed in rich abundance by those whom men esteem fortunate; and if these beings could receive tidings of the might and majesty of the gods, and could then emerge from their hidden dwellings through the open fissures of the earth to the places which we inhabit; if they could suddenly behold the earth and the sea and the vault of heaven; could recognize the expanse of the cloudy firmament, and the might of the winds of heaven, and admire the sun in his majesty, beauty, and radiant effulgence; and lastly, when night veiled the earth in darkness, they could behold the starry heavens, the changing moon, and the stars rising and setting in the unvarying course ordained from eternity, they would surely exclaim, “There are gods! and such great things must be the work of their hands.”

Aristotle: Quoted by Humboldt in his Cosmos.