Quotes by Aristotle (Page 2 of 3)

The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy.

The man who confers a favour would rather not be repaid in the same coin.

Victory is plesant, not only to those who love to conquer, bot to all; for there is produced an idea of superiority, which all with more or less eagerness desire.

Men become richer not only by increasing their existing wealth but also by decreasing their expenditure.

The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy.

The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties. This exercise must occupy a complete lifetime. One swallow does make a spring, nor does one fine day. Excellence is a habit, not an event.

It will contribute towards one's object, who wishes to acquire a facility in the gaining of knowledge, to doubt judiciously.

Inequality is everywhere at the bottom of faction, for in general faction arises from men's striving for what is equal.

The greatest threat to the state is not faction but distraction.

A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.

All flatterers are mercenary, and all low-minded men are flatterers.

A good character carries with it the highest power of causing a thing to be believed.

In the perfect state the good man is absolutely the same as the good citizen; whereas in other states the good citizen is only good relatively to his own form of government.

Those whose days are consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolties of fashion, unobservant of nature's lovelinessof demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.

The government of freemen is nobler and implies more virtue than despotic government. Neither is a city to be deemed happy or a legislator to be praised because he trains his citizens to conquer and obtain dominion over their neighbors, for there is great evil in this.

All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.

The best friend is he that, when he wishes a person's good, wishes it for that person's own sake.

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist.

The best things are placed between extremes.

A body in motion can maintain this motion only if it remains in contact with a mover.

People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just.

Life is full of chances and changes, and the most prosperous of men may in the evening of his days meet with great misfortunes.

Happiness is self-connectedness.

It is also in the interests of a tyrant to make his subjects poo...the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.

If you see a man approaching with the obvious intent of doing you good, run for your life.

Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.

There is nothing unequal as the equal treatment of unequals.

Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its the earth's flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.

The appropriate age for marrige is around eighteen and thirty-seven for man.

Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

To appreciate the beauty of a snow flake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.

God and nature create nothing that does not fulfill a purpose.

When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name -- a constitution.

Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.

A period may be defined as a portion of speech that has in itself a beginning and an end, being at the same time not too big to be taken in at a glance.

The greatest victory is over self.

If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.

But also philosophy is not about perceptible substances they, you see, are prone to destruction.

The seat of the soul and the control of voluntary movement -- in fact, of nervous functions in general, -- are to be sought in the heart. The brain is an organ of minor importance.

And of course, the brain is not responsible for any of the sensations at all. The correct view is that the seat and source of sensation is the region of the heart.

Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.

Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard.

The most important relationship we can all have is the one you have with yourself, the most important journey you can take is one of self-discovery. To know yourself, you must spend time with yourself, you must not be afraid to be alone. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Youth should stay away from all evil, especially things that produce wickedness and ill-will.

No man of high and generous spirit is ever willing to indulge in flattery; the good may feel affection for others, but will not flatter them.

True happiness comes from gaining insight and growing into your best possible self. Otherwise all you're having is immediate gratification pleasure, which is fleeting and doesn't grow you as a person.

Some believe it to be just friends wanting, as if to be healthy enough to wish health.

It is the characteristic of the magnanimous man to ask no favor but to be ready to do kindness to others.

The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number -- tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

Worms are the intestines of the earth.

Between husband and wife friendship seems to exist by nature, for man is naturally disposed to pairing.

For the lesser evil is reckoned a good in comparison with the greater evil, since the lesser evil is rather to be chosen than the greater. .

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.

When you feel yourself lacking something, send your thoughts towards your Intimate and search for the Divinity that lives within you.

In order to be effective you need not only virtue but also mental strength.

Once more: there are three offices according to whose directions the highest magistrates are chosen in certain states -- guardians of the law, probuli, councilors -- of these, the guardians of the law are an aristocratical, the probuli an oligarchical, the council a democratical institution.

The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry and limitations; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the mother of invention.

Prudence as well as Moral Virtue determines the complete performance of a man's proper function: Virtue ensures the rightness of the end we aim at, Prudence ensures the rightness of the means we adopt to gain that end.

Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.

Rising before daylight is also to be commended; it is a healthy habit, and gives more time for the management of the household as well as for liberal studies.

Nature of man is not what he was born as, but what he is born for.

Each human being is bred with a unique set of potentials that yearn to be fulfilled as surely as the acorn yearns to become the oak within it.

The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

Happiness is at once the best, the noblest, and the pleasantest of things.

It is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.

Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.

With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.

Where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power to not act.

It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits.

Men are good in but one way, but bad in many.

Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.

The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself.

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement.

Today you can start forming habits for overcoming all obstacles in life... even nicotine cravings.

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.

Our actions determine our dispositions.

He who confers a benefit on anyone loves him better than he is beloved.

Of old, the demagogue was also a general, and then democracies changed into tyrannies. Most of the ancient tyrants were originally demagogues. They are not so now, but they were then; and the reason is that they were generals and not orators, for oratory had not yet come into fashion.

Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when every one has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business.

Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire.

Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it; People become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarily, we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.

Personal beauty requires that one should be tall; little people may have charm and elegance, but beauty-no.

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.

Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them.

Virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.

Prayers and sacrifices are of no avail.

Women should marry when they are about eighteen years of age, and men at seven and thirty; then they are in the prime of life, and the decline in the powers of both will coincide.

There is more both of beauty and of raison d'etre in the works of nature- than in those of art.

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.

In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.

As often as we do good, we offer sacrifices to God.

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.

We must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils.

For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.

For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the well is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.

The habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference.

Soul and body, I suggest react sympathetically upon each other. A change in the state of the soul produces a change in the shape of the body and conversely, a change in the shape of the body produces a change in the state of the soul.

Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.

The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god.

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

He overcomes a stout enemy who overcomes his own anger.

Time past, even God is deprived of the power of recalling.

Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them. A true friend is one soul in two bodies.

Every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.

For knowing is spoken of in three ways: it may be either universal knowledge or knowledge proper to the matter in hand or actualising such knowledge; consequently three kinds of error also are possible.

The purpose of art is to represent the meaning of things. This represents the true reality, not external aspects.

Friendship is two souls inhabiting one body.

So that the lover of myths, which are a compact of wonders, is by the same token a lover of wisdom.

Evidence from torture may be considered completely untrustworthy.

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.

A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave... The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities -- a natural defectiveness.

Wicked men obey out of fear. good men, out of love.

The high-minded man does not bear grudges, for it is not the mark of a great soul to remember injuries, but to forget them.

Happiness is essentially perfect; so that the happy man requires in addition the goods of the body, external goods and the gifts of fortune, in order that his activity may not be impeded through lack of them.

The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness.

The aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought....The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likable, disgusting, and hateful.

For imitation is natural to man from his infancy. Man differs from other animals particularly in this, that he is imitative, and acquires his rudiments of knowledge in this way; besides, the delight in it is universal.

Education begins at the level of the learner.

It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

If men are given food, but no chastisement nor any work, they become insolent.

The ideal man takes joy in doing favors for others.

In the human species at all events there is a great diversity of pleasures. The same things delight some men and annoy others, and things painful and disgusting to some are pleasant and attractive to others.

We are what we do.
Excellence, therefore, is not an act,  but a habit.

In inventing a model we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.

For the real difference between humans and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state.

Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.

That which is impossible and probable is better than that which is possible and improbable.

A line is not made up of points. ... In the same way, time is not made up parts considered as indivisible 'nows.' Part of Aristotle's reply to Zeno's paradox concerning continuity.

Nor need it cause surprise that things disagreeable to the good man should seem pleasant to some men; for mankind is liable to many corruptions and diseases, and the things in question are not really pleasant, but only pleasant to these particular persons, who are in a condition to think them so.

He who takes his fill of every pleasure ... becomes depraved; while he who avoids all pleasures alike ... becomes insensible.

The vigorous are no better than the lazy during one half of life, for all men are alike when asleep.

Money was established for exchange, but interest causes it to be reproduced by itself. Therefore this way of earning money is greatly in conflict with the natural law.

Greed has no boundaries.

The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. (VII).

Friends are an aid to the young, to guard them from error; to the elderly, to attend to their wants and to supplement their failing power of action; to those in the prime of life, to assist them to noble deeds.

Good moral character is not something that we can achieve on our own. We need a culture that supports the conditions under which self-love and friendship flourish.

Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.

But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, -- is this just?

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.

The quality of life is determined by its activities.

For well-being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer, and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep; and its main front would face the south.

That the equalization of property exercises an influence on political society was clearly understood even by some of the old legislators. Laws were made by Solon and others prohibiting an individual from possessing as much land as he pleased.

And it is characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes family and a state.

We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses -- in short, from fewer premises.

All proofs rest on premises.

People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.

With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.

It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.

The happy man ... will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way.

There is no such thing as committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, for it is simply WRONG.

Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.

In educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain.

Intuition is the source of scientific knowledge.

A life of wealth and many belongings is only a means to happiness. Honor, power, and success cannot be happiness because they depend on the whims of others, and happiness should be self-contained, complete in itself.

The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.

Education and morals make the good man, the good statesman, the good ruler.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of the dissimilar.

Self-sufficiency is both a good and an absolute good.

Happiness, then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.

Both Self-restraint and Unrestraint are a matter of extremes as compared with the character of the mass of mankind; the restrained man shows more and the unrestrained man less steadfastness than most men are capable of.

This body is not a home, but an inn; and that only for a short time. Seneca Friendship is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

Human good turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence, and if there is more than one sort of excellence, in accordance with the best and most complete.Foroneswallowdoesnot makea summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them.

Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in.

There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the state: -- Is it the multitude? Or the wealthy? Or the good? Or the one best man? Or a tyrant?

Cruel is the strife of brothers.

Purpose ... is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts.