Aristotle Quotes

A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.

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

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.

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them.

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

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

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.

Evils draw men together.

... a science must deal with a subject and its properties.

Men create the gods after their own images.

Goodness is to do good to the deserving and love the good and hate the wicked, and not to be eager to inflict punishment or take vengeance, but to be gracious and kindly and forgiving.

Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?

Philosophy is the science which considers truth.

Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

... the science we are after is not about mathematicals either none of them, you see, is separable.

The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it is.

What soon grows old? Gratitude.

For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

Courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible.

Hence both women and children must be educated with an eye to the constitution, if indeed it makes any difference to the virtue of a city-state that its children be virtuous, and its women too. And it must make a difference, since half the free population are women, and from children come those who participate in the constitution.

A man can make up his mind quickly when he has only a little to make up.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or, at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned.

Quid quid movetur ab alio movetur"(nothing moves without having been moved).

A true friend is one soul in two bodies.

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because life is sweet and they are growing.

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

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, 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.

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.

Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle in itself, is able to obey such a principle. And we call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.

In everything, it is no easy task to find the middle.

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.

Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed.

In the many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, although mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained. Democracy, for example, 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.

Melancholy men, of all others, are the most witty.

Adventure is worthwhile.

We must not listen to those who advise us 'being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts' but must put on immortality as much as possible and strain every nerve to live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and honour surpasses all else.

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

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

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

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

A state of the soul is either (1) an emotion, (2) a capacity, or (3) a disposition; virtue therefore must be one of these three things.

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.

Even if we could suppose the citizen body to be virtuous, without each of them being so, yet the latter would be better, for in the virtue of each the virtue of all is involved.