Aristotle Quotes

The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances.

The man who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god.

PLOT is CHARACTER revealed by ACTION.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

Happiness, then, is co-extensive with contemplation, and the more people contemplate, the happier they are; not incidentally, but in virtue of their contemplation, because it is in itself precious. Thus happiness is a form of contemplation.

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

A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character.

A person's life persuades better than his word.

Happiness involves engagement in activities that promote one's highest potentials.

The rattle is a toy suited to the infant mind, and education is a rattle or toy for children of larger growth.

We must not feel a childish disgust at the investigations of the meaner animals. For there is something marvelous in all natural things.

Of the irrational part of the soul again one division appears to be common to all living things, and of a vegetative nature.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

Nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office.

In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.

Thus then a single harmony orders the composition of the whole...by the mingling of the most contrary principles.

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.

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

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good.

Gentleness is the ability to bear reproaches and slights with moderation, and not to embark on revenge quickly, and not to be easily provoked to anger, but be free from bitterness and contentiousness, having tranquility and stability in the spirit.

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

...happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely.

We deliberate not about ends, but about means.

Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to Health

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

A right election can only be made by those who have knowledge.

Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?

A man becomes a friend whenever being loved he loves in return.

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

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

It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous.

In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.

Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

Selfishness doesn't consist in a love to yourself, but in a big degree of such love.

The excellence of a thing is related to its proper function.

The worst thing about slavery is that the slaves eventually get to like it.

Our youth should also be educated with music and physical education.

We ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things....We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible, and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.

For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one's strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.

If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.

Thus it is thought that justice is equality; and so it is, but not for all persons, only for those that are equal. Inequality also is thought to be just; and so it is, but not for all, only for the unequal. We make bad mistakes if we neglect this for whom when we are deciding what is just. The reason is that we are making judgements about ourselves, and people are generally bad judges where their own interests are involved.

People do not naturally become morally excellent or practically wise. They become so, if at all, only as the result of lifelong personal and community effort.

Inasmuch as every family is a part of a state, and these relationships are the parts of a family, and the virtue of the part must have regard to the virtue of the whole, women and children must be trained by education with an eye to the constitution, if the virtues of either of them are supposed to make any difference in the virtues of the state. And they must make a difference: for the children grow up to be citizens, and half the free persons in a state are women.

These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.

[this element], the seat of the appetites and of desire in general, does in a sense participate in principle, as being amenable and obedient to it

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