Epigraphs for Complete Thyself

The following passages might prove useful as epigraphs or quotations in my book Complete Thyself: Aristotle on Human Fulfillment.

Aristotle

• "Nothing is complete unless it has a telos." (207a15)
• "Nothing incomplete is found among the elements of fulfillment." (1177b26)

W.H. Auden

• "The life of man is never quite completed." ~ W.H. Auden, "In Time of War"

Henry Beston

• "True humanity is no inherent right but an achievement." ~ Henry Beston, Herbs and the Earth

George Eliot

• "Character too is a process and an unfolding." ~ George Eliot, Middlemarch
• "Is there not a genius for feeling nobly which also reigns over human spirits?" ~ George Eliot, Middlemarch
• "Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." ~ George Eliot, Middlemarch
• "Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending." ~ George Eliot, Middlemarch

Margaret Fuller

• "What concerns me now is that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in a word, a complete life of its kind." ~ Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Hesiod

• Works and Days, 249-250:
  ἐγγὺς γὰρ ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἐόντες ἀθάνατοι φράζονται
  "The immortals are close at hand and mingle with men."
  
• Works and Days 293-298 (quoted at EN I.4 1195b13):
  οὗτος μὲν πανάριστος, ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ
  φρασσάμενος, τά κ᾽ ἔπειτα καὶ ἐς τέλος ᾖσιν ἀμείνω:
  295ἐσθλὸς δ᾽ αὖ κἀκεῖνος, ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται:
  ὃς δέ κε μήτ᾽ αὐτὸς νοέῃ μήτ᾽ ἄλλου ἀκούων
  ἐν θυμῷ βάλληται, ὃ δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἀχρήιος ἀνήρ.
  
• Works and Days 308-309:
  ἐξ ἔργων δ᾽ ἄνδρες πολύμηλοί τ᾽ ἀφνειοί τε:
  καὶ ἐργαζόμενοι πολὺ φίλτεροι ἀθανάτοισιν.
  "It is through work that men grow rich in flocks and abundance;
  it is through work too that men become more dear to the immortals."
  
• Works and Days 694:
  μέτρα φυλάσσεσθαι: καιρὸς δ᾽ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἄριστος.
  "Cherish what's measured; for the opportune time is best in all things."
  
• Works and Days 715:
  μηδὲ πολύξεινον μηδ᾽ ἄξεινον καλέεσθαι,
  "Be neither friendless nor a friend to all."
  

Pindar

• Olympian I 33-34:
  ἁμέραι δ᾽ ἐπίλοιποι
  μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι.
  "Days to come are the wisest witnesses."
  
• Olympian I 113-114:
  ἐπ᾽ ἄλλοισι δ᾽ ἄλλοι μεγάλοι. τὸ δ᾽ ἔσχατον
  κορυφοῦται βασιλεῦσι.
  "One man is great in one way, one in another;
  But kings reach the highest pinnacle."
  
• Olympian II 30-34:
  ἤτοι βροτῶν γε κέκριται
  πεῖρας οὔ τι θανάτου,
  οὐδ᾽ ἡσύχιμον ἁμέραν ὁπότε, παῖδ᾽ ἁλίου,
  ἀτειρεῖ σὺν ἀγαθῷ τελευτάσομεν: ῥοαὶ δ᾽ ἄλλοτ᾽ ἄλλαι
  εὐθυμιᾶν τε μετὰ καὶ πόνων ἐς ἄνδρας ἔβαν.
  "Truly mortals cannot know the limits of death,
  nor our day of peace, that child of the sun-god,
  when we shall bring unblemished goods to completion;
  for streams of both pain and pleasure rain down
  forever upon men."
  

Hajime Tanabe

• "True freedom is not something one receives from another; one has to acquire it for oneself." ~ Hajime Tanabe, Philosophy as Metanoetics

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Aristotle