Daily Wisdom

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

@Lord Esdin if not only to after see what you want to see.

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[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[pyf]

excerpt from the short story 'Aedena'. Plus an afterword.



Story/script by Jean-Paul Appel-Guéry and Paula Salomon, artwork by Jean 'Moebius' Gir and Marc Bati

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[pyf]

"Een-gonyama Gonyama!
"Invooboo! Yah-bo! Yah-bo! Invooboo!" - (excerpt from a Zulu anthem)

Hippopotamus - Hippos and Humans - Wikipedia

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[pyf]

"We are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am." - Michael Onyebuchi Eze, about the core of ubuntu as a philosophy.

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

@Lord Esdin I thought that was friendship and/or love.

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“The man who shuns and fears everything and stands up to nothing becomes a coward; the man who is afraid of nothing at all, but marches up to every danger becomes foolhardy. Similarly the man who indulges in pleasure and refrains from none becomes licentious (akolastos); but if a man behaves like a boor (agroikos) and turns his back on every pleasure, he is a case of insensibility. Thus temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency and preserved by the mean.”
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“Tis the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
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“a poet must be a composer of plots rather than of verses,”
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“Each man judges correctly those matters with which he is acquainted; it is of these that he is a competent critic.”
~Aristoteles.

 

[pyf]

The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe (1872)

A Hindoo fable.

I.

IT was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

II.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me!—but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

III.

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried:"Ho!—what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 't is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

IV.

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

V.

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'T is clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

VI.

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

VII.

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

VIII.

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral.

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!


Blind men and an elephant - Wikipedia

 

[deepstrasz]

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Well known. Had no idea it was ripped borrowed by a westerner.

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[Lord Esdin]

 

[pyf]

Guardians of the Galaxy (film) - Wikipedia

 

[deepstrasz]

“The poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion.”
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“It is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything; [for then] there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration.”
----
“Hence the young man is not a fit student of Moral Philosophy, for he has no experience in the actions of life, while all that is said presupposes and is concerned with these: and in the next place, since he is apt to follow the impulses of his passions, he will hear as though he heard not, and to no profit, the end in view being practice and not mere knowledge. And I draw no distinction between young in years, and youthful in temper and disposition: the defect to which I allude being no direct result of the time, but of living at the beck and call of passion, and following each object as it rises. For to them that are such the knowledge comes to be unprofitable, as to those of imperfect self-control:”
~Aristoteles.

 

[pyf]

imperfect self-control

Spoiler: Preamble

Hidden

All persons fictitious disclaimer - Wikipedia

(some time after the events depicted in the film, maybe in an alternate universe/reality, before the members of the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland, or not): "So, what exactly is your problem with me exactly? [...] It seems you want to see me down on my luck [...] All I wanted to do was to give [them] a small warning shot. [...] So please, be my guest and tell me what is wrong. I am sure we find a solution that will please us [...] sufficiently."

Schindler's List - Wikipedia

 

[deepstrasz]

@pyf disturbing movie and that under a certain type of political regime.
But what if "I Stand Alone" in Paris and it ends up to be Irreversible?

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[pyf]

[...] But what if "I Stand Alone" in Paris and it ends up to be Irreversible?

@deepstrasz: fortunately for us all, Gandhi may (or may not) inspire us too?

Spoiler: Gandhi Bonus - maybe worth watching too?

Gandhi (film) - Wikipedia
Mahatma Gandhi - Wikipedia

 

[deepstrasz]

fortunately for us all, Gandhi may (or may not) inspire us too?

I guess there's no cheeks left to turn in Irreversible.

Too bad I had to search for the clips since the links say "Video unavailable". I couldn't find the last one.
Great movie anyway, I love Ben Kingsley's performance.

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[pyf]

imperfect self-control

I guess there's no cheeks left to turn in Irreversible.

@deepstrasz: We'll be back after these messages from our sponsor

Spoiler: *yawn*

I personally prefer the two previous ones, even though all three basically tell us the same thing...

 

[deepstrasz]

“For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy of the needy: none of them common good of all.”
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“Some thinkers hold that it is by nature that people become good, others that it is by habit, and others that it is by instruction. . . just as a piece of land has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish the seed, so the mind of the pupil has to be prepared in its habits if it is to enjoy and dislike the right things.”
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“Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, and we only care what opinion is held of us because of the people who form that opinion, it follows that the people before whom we feel shame are those whose opinion of us matters to us.”
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“Equity bids us be merciful to the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his intentions; nor this or that detail so much as the whole story; to ask not what a man is now but what he has always or usually been.”
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“First then this must be noted, that it is the nature of such things to be spoiled by defect and excess; as we see in the case of health and strength (since for the illustration of things which cannot be seen we must use those that can), for excessive training impairs the strength as well as deficient: meat and drink, in like manner, in too great or too small quantities, impair the health: while in due proportion they cause, increase, and preserve it.”
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“If we ought to philosophize we ought to philosophize, and if we ought not to philosophize we ought to philosophize ; in either case, therefore, we ought to philosophize. For if philosophy exists we ought certainly to philosophize, because philosophy exists ; and if it does not exist, even so we ought to examine why it does not exist, and in examining this we shall be philosophizing, because examination is what makes philosophy.”
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“It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election."
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“Indeed, it is evident that the mere passage of time itself is destructive rather than generative [...] because change is primarily a 'passing away.' So it is only incidentally that time is the cause of things coming into being and existing.”
~Artistoteles.

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[pyf]

Spoiler: Preamble

Contact (1997 American film) - Wikipedia

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[deepstrasz]

“The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole.”
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“To die to escape from poverty or love or anything painful is not the mark of a brave man, but rather of a cowrd; for it is softness to fly from what is troublesome, and such a man endures death not because it is noble but to fly from evil”
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“For there are two reasons why human beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it, or they may have means to deal with it: thus when in danger at sea people may feel confident about what will happen either because they have no experience of bad weather, or because their experience gives them the means of dealing with it.”
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“Some jests are becoming to a gentleman, others are not; see that you choose such as become you. Irony better befits a gentleman than buffoonery; the ironical man jokes to amuse himself, the buffoon to amuse other people.”
~Artistoteles.

“But in all cases we must guard most carefully against what is pleasant, and pleasure itself, because we are not impartial judges of it.”
~Aristoteles.

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

“For this cause also children cannot be happy, for they are not old enough to be capable of noble acts; when children are spoken of as happy, it is in compliment to their promise for the future.”
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“Hence, since every finite body is exhausted by the repeated abstraction of a finite body, it seems obviously to follow that everything cannot subsist in everything else. For let flesh be extracted from water and again more flesh be produced from the remainder by repeating the process of separation: then, even though the quantity separated out will continually decrease, still it will not fall below a certain magnitude. If, therefore, the process comes to an end, everything will not be in everything else (for there will be no flesh in the remaining water); if on the other hand it does not, and further extraction is always possible, there will be an infinite multitude of finite equal particles in a finite quantity—which is impossible.”
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“The saddest of all tragedies - the wasted life”
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“For instance, it is not the function of medicine to restore a patient to health, but only to promote this end as far as possible; for even those whose recovery is impossible may be properly treated.”
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“The megalopsychos cannot let anyone else, except a friend, determine his life. For that would be slavish; and this is why all flatterers are servile and inferior people are flatterers.”
----
“All the elements of an Epic poem are found in Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the Epic poem.”
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“For the carpenter's and the geometer's inquiries about the right angle are different also; the carpenter restricts himself to what helps his work, but the geometer inquires into what, or what sort of things, the right angle is, since he studies the truth. We must do the same, then in other areas too, [seeking the proper degree of exactness], so that digressions do not overwhelm our main task.”
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“Every tragedy consists in tying and untying of a knot.”
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“With regard to sleep and waking, we must consider what they are: whether they are peculiar to soul or to body, or common to both; and if common, to what part of soul or body the appertain: further, from what cause it arises that they are atributes of animals, and whether all animals share in them both, or some partake of the one only, others of the other only, or some partake of neither and some of both.”
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“The physician and the philosopher have different ways of defining the diseases of the soul. For instance anger for the philosopher is a sentiment born of the desire to return an offense, whereas for the physician it is a surging of blood around the heart.”
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“And if a man believes nothing, but believes it equally so and not so, how would his state be different from a vegetable's?”
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“There are four possible ways of preventing a man from working his argument [161a1] to a conclusion. It can be done either by demolishing the point on which the falsity that comes about depends, or by stating an objection directed against the questioner—for often when a solution has not as a matter of fact been brought, yet the questioner is rendered thereby unable to pursue the argument any farther. Thirdly, one may object to the questions asked; for it may happen that what the questioner [5] wants does not follow from the questions he has asked because he has asked them badly, whereas if something additional is granted the conclusion comes about. If, then, the questioner is unable to pursue his argument farther, the objection will be directed against the questioner; if he can do so, then it will be against his questions. The fourth and worst kind of objection is that which is directed to the time allowed for discussion; for some people bring objections of a kind which would take longer to [10] answer than the length of the discussion in hand.”
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“Men ought not to labor at the same time with their minds and with their bodies; for the two kinds of labor are opposed to one another; the labor of the body impedes the mind, and the labor of the mind the body.”
~Aristoteles.

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

“Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy.”
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“There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each instrument could do its own work, at the word of command or by intelligent anticipation, like the statues of Daedalus or the tripods made by Hephaestus, of which Homer relates that "Of their own motion they entered the conclave of Gods on Olympus", as if a shuttle should weave of itself, and a plectrum should do its own harp playing.”
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“Most people-all, in fact, who regard the whole heaven as finite-say it lies at the centre. But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the contrary view. At the centre, they say, is fire, and the earth is one of the stars, creating night and day by its circular motion about the centre. They further construct another earth in opposition to ours to which they give the name counterearth. In all this they are not seeking for theories and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing their observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and opinions of their own. But there are many others who would agree that it is wrong to give the earth the central position, looking for confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their view is that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire, they say, is more precious than earth, and the limit than the intermediate, and the circumference and the centre are limits. Reasoning on this basis they take the view that it is not earth that lies at the centre of the sphere, but rather fire. The Pythagoreans have a further reason. They hold that the most important part of the world, which is the centre, should be most strictly guarded, and name it, or rather the fire which occupies that place, the 'Guardhouse of Zeus', as if the word 'centre' were quite unequivocal, and the centre of the mathematical figure were always the same with that of the thing or the natural centre. But it is better to conceive of the case of the whole heaven as analogous to that of animals, in which the centre of the animal and that of the body are different. For this reason they have no need to be so disturbed about the world, or to call in a guard for its centre: rather let them look for the centre in the other sense and tell us what it is like and where nature has set it. That centre will be something primary and precious; but to the mere position we should give the last place rather than the first. For the middle is what is defined, and what defines it is the limit, and that which contains or limits is more precious than that which is limited, see ing that the latter is the matter and the former the essence of the system. (2-13-1)

There are similar disputes about the shape of the earth. Some think it is spherical, others that it is flat and drum-shaped. For evidence they bring the fact that, as the sun rises and sets, the part concealed by the earth shows a straight and not a curved edge, whereas if the earth were spherical the line of section would have to be circular. In this they leave out of account the great distance of the sun from the earth and the great size of the circumference, which, seen from a distance on these apparently small circles appears straight. Such an appearance ought not to make them doubt the circular shape of the earth. But they have another argument. They say that because it is at rest, the earth must necessarily have this shape. For there are many different ways in which the movement or rest of the earth has been conceived. (2-13-3)”
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“For if Being is just one, and one in the way mentioned, there is a principle no longer, since a principle must be the principle of some thing or things.”
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“We physicists, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion—which is indeed made plain by induction.”
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“Even subjects that are known are known only to a few”
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“And it will often happen that a man with wealth in the form of coined money will not have enough to eat; and what a ridiculous kind of wealth is that which even in abundance will not save you from dying with hunger!”
~Aristoteles.

 

[Togra_blah]

"Are you speaking scientifically or emotionally?"
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"Being split in two halves is no theory with me. [...] I have a human half, you see, as well as an alien half, submerged, constantly at war with each other. [...] I survive it because my intelligence wins out over both, makes them live together."
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"If I seem insensitive to what you're going through, understand, it's the way I am."
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"Consider the alternatives, Mister Scott." (Scott: We have no fuel! What alternatives?) "Mister Scott, there are always alternatives."
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"I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose."

~Mr. Spock

 

[deepstrasz]

@Togra_blah

 

[Togra_blah]

I don't know how to respond to that, deespstrasz.

If my quotes of Mr. Spock from Star Trek are out of place here, I will find somewhere more appropriate to put them.

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"Vulcans do not speculate. I speak from pure logic. If I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has in fact fallen."
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"Insufficient facts always invite danger."
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"The Horta has a very logical mind and after close association with humans, I find that curiously refreshing."
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"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

~Mr. Spock

 

[deepstrasz]

I don't know how to respond to that, deespstrasz.

Didn't you want to link the one with loneliness on the other thread? This one is related

If my quotes of Mr. Spock from Star Trek are out of place here, I will find somewhere more appropriate to put them.

If it still passes as Daily Wisdom, then why not?

 

[Togra_blah]

Ah, I guess I was just confused by the @ tag - the video certainly qualifies as daily wisdom, but I was struggling to see how it might directly apply to my prior reply.

I'll try to pick Spock quotes that adhere to the theme.

Keep me posted if they start to stray off target.

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

Spoiler

 

[Togra_blah]

"Worry is a human emotion, Captain. I accept what has happened."
----
"Change is the essential process of all existence."
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"Live long and prosper."

~Mr. Spock

 

[Lord Esdin]

 

[deepstrasz]

“For the various necessaries of life are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ in their dealings with each other something which was intrinsically useful and easily applicable to the purposes of life, for example, iron, silver, and the like. Of this the value was at first measured by size and weight, but in process of time they put a stamp upon it, to save the trouble of weighing and to mark the value.”
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“There seems to be in us a sort of affinity to musical modes and rhythms, which makes some philosophers say that the soul is a tuning, others, that it possesses tuning.”
~Aristoteles.

“Holding as we do that, while knowledge of any kind is a thing to be honoured and prized, one kind of it may, either by reason of its greater exactness or of a higher dignity and greater wonderfulness in its objects, be more honourable and precious than another, on both accounts we should naturally be led to place in the front rank the study of the soul. The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life. Our aim is to grasp and understand, first its essential nature, and secondly its properties; of these some are thought to be affections proper to the soul itself, while others are considered to attach to the animal owing to the presence of soul.

To attain any knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world. As the form of question which here presents itself, viz. the question 'What is it?', recurs in other fields, it might be supposed that there was some single method of inquiry applicable to all objects whose essential nature we are endeavouring to ascertain (as there *is* for incidental properties the single method of demonstration); in that case what we should have to seek for would be this unique method. But if there is no such single and general method for solving the question of essence, our task becomes still more difficult; in the case of each different subject we shall have to determine the appropriate process of investigation. If to this there be a clear answer, e.g. that the process is demonstration or division, or some other known method, many difficulties and hesitations still beset us—with what facts shall we begin the inquiry? For the facts which form the starting-points in different subjects must be different, as e.g. in the case of numbers and surfaces.

First, no doubt, it is necessary to determine in which of the *summa genera* soul lies, what it *is*; is it 'a this-somewhat', a substance, or is a quale or a quantum, or some other of the remaining kinds of predicates which we have distinguished? Further, does soul belong to the class of potential existents, or is it not rather an actuality? Our answer to this question is of the greatest importance."
~Aristoteles.

 

[Scorpio]

 

[deepstrasz]

 

[deepstrasz]

“there is no gain in being persuaded not to be hot or in pain or hungry or the like, since we shall experience these feelings none the less.
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“Plainly, then, excess with regard to pleasures is self-indulgence and is culpable; with regard to pains one is not, as in the case of courage, called temperate for facing them or self-indulgent for not doing so, but the selfindulgent man is so called because he is pained more than he ought at not getting pleasant things (even his pain being caused by pleasure), and the temperate man is so called because he is not pained at the absence of what is pleasant and at his abstinence from it.”
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“The temperate man occupies a middle position with regard to these objects. For he neither enjoys the things that the self-indulgent man enjoys most-but rather dislikes them-nor in general the things that he should not, nor anything of this sort to excess, nor does he feel pain or craving when they are absent, or does so only to a moderate degree, and not more than he should, nor when he should not, and so on; but the things that, being pleasant, make for health or for good condition, he will desire moderately and as he should, and also other pleasant things if they are not hindrances to these ends, or contrary to what is noble, or beyond his means.”
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“For we don't wish to know what bravery is but to be brave, not what justice is but to be just, just as we wish to be in health rather than to know what health is”
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“one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.”
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“Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be; Euripides, as they are.”
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“As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation, so he too first laid down the main lines of Comedy, by dramatising the ludicrous instead of writing personal satire.”
~Aristoteles.