Aristotle

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects - things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language - either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Law is mind without reason.

A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.