Aristotle Quotes

You are what you do repeatedly.

Philosophy can make people sick.

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.

A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.

All friendly feelings toward others come from the friendly feelings a person has for himself.

Just as at the Olympic games it is not the handsomest or strongest men who are crowned with victory but the successful competitors, so in life it is those who act rightly who carry off all the prizes and rewards.

For those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not

A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible. What is best is happiness, and to be happy is an active exercise of virtue and a complete employment of it.

But a man's best friend is the one who not only wishes him well but wishes it for his own sake (even though nobody will ever know it): and this condition is best fulfilled by his attitude towards himself - and similarly with all the other attributes that go to define a friend. For we have said before that all friendly feelings for others are extensions of a man's feelings for himself.

So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean.

Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all other advantages.

By 'life,' we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.

If the consequences are the same it is always better to assume the more limited antecedent, since in things of nature the limited, as being better, is sure to be found, wherever possible, rather than the unlimited.

All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings; there’s too much corruption in the world

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.

Metaphor is halfway between the unintelligible and the commonplace.

Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

We, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion.

The greatest threat to the state is not faction but distraction

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.

If what was said in the Ethics is true, that the happy life is the life according to virtue lived without impediment, and that virtue is a mean, then the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best. And the same principles of virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of constitutions; for the constitution is in a figure the life of the city.

Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.

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

Everyone honors the wise.

Nature does nothing in vain. Therefore, it is imperative for persons to act in accordance with their nature and develop their latent talents, in order to be content and complete.

The life of children, as much as that of intemperate men, is wholly governed by their desires.

Let us be well persuaded that everyone of us possesses happiness in proportion to his virtue and wisdom, and according as he acts in obedience to their suggestion.

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

Great and frequent reverses can crush and mar our bliss both by the pain they cause and by the hindrance they offer to many activities. Yet nevertheless even in adversity nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.

Where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up.

Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.

When Pleasure is at the bar the jury is not impartial.

The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education

It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.

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.

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.

Think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.

The body is most fully developed from thirty to thirty-five years of age, the mind at about forty-nine.

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.

Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action.

Man, as an originator of action, is a union of desire and intellect.

To die, and thus avoid poverty or love, or anything painful, is not the part of a brave man, but rather of a coward; for it is cowardice to avoid trouble, and the suicide does not undergo death because it is honorable, but in order to avoid evil.

Man by nature wants to know.