Quotations by Aristotle

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Aristotle, Greek philosopher

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many different subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. Aristotle (together with Socrates and Plato) is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. (Source: Wikipedia)

Quotations

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher
  1. A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.
  2. A friend to all is a friend to none.
  3. A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
  4. 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.
  5. A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.
  6. A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
  7. A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
  8. All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
  9. All men by nature desire knowledge.
  10. All men by nature desire to know.
  11. All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
  12. All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
  13. Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
  14. Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.
  15. At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
  16. Bad men are full of repentance.
  17. Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
  18. Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
  19. Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
  20. Change in all things is sweet.
  21. Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.
  22. Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.
  23. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
  24. 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.
  25. Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
  26. 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.
  27. Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
  28. Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
  29. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
  30. Education is the best provision for old age.
  31. Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
  32. Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
  33. Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
  34. Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.
  35. Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
  36. For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.
  37. For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
  38. For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.
  39. Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
  40. Friendship is essentially a partnership.
  41. Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
  42. Happiness depends upon ourselves.
  43. He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.
  44. He who hath many friends hath none.
  45. He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
  46. He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
  47. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
  48. Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
  49. Hope is a waking dream.
  50. Hope is the dream of a waking man.
  51. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
  52. I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
  53. If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
  54. If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.
  55. 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.
  56. In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
  57. In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.
  58. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
  59. In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
  60. Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.
  61. It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
  62. It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.
  63. It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
  64. It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
  65. It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
  66. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
  67. It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
  68. Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.
  69. Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
  70. Man is by nature a political animal.
  71. Man is naturally a political animal.
  72. Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
  73. Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
  74. Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
  75. Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
  76. Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
  77. Most people would rather give than get affection.
  78. Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
  79. My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
  80. Nature does nothing in vain.
  81. Nature does nothing uselessly.
  82. No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
  83. No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
  84. No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
  85. No one loves the man whom he fears.
  86. No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
  87. Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
  88. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.
  89. Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
  90. Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
  91. Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
  92. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
  93. Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
  94. Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
  95. Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
  96. Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
  97. Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
  98. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
  99. Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.
  100. The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
  101. The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
  102. The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.
  103. The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
  104. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
  105. The end of labor is to gain leisure.
  106. The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
  107. 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.
  108. The gods too are fond of a joke.
  109. The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
  110. The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
  111. The law is reason, free from passion.
  112. The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
  113. The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
  114. The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
  115. The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
  116. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
  117. The secret to humor is surprise.
  118. The soul never thinks without a picture.
  119. The state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political animal.
  120. The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
  121. The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
  122. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
  123. The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
  124. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
  125. The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
  126. There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
  127. There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
  128. Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
  129. This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.
  130. Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
  131. Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
  132. Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.
  133. Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
  134. To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
  135. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
  136. We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
  137. We make war that we may live in peace.
  138. We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
  139. We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.
  140. Well begun is half done.
  141. What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
  142. What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
  143. What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
  144. Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
  145. Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
  146. Wit is educated insolence.
  147. Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
  148. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
  149. Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

 

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