Aristotle Quotes

Either a beast or a god.

Conscientious and careful physicians allocate causes of disease to natural laws, while the ablest scientists go back to medicine for their first principles.

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.

And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity.

To let them share in the highest offices is to take a risk; inevitably, their unjust standards will cause them to commit injustice, and their lack of judgement will lead them into error. On the other hand there is a risk in not giving them a share, and in their non participation, for when there are many who have no property and no honours they inevitably constitute a huge hostile element in the state. But it can still remain open to them to participate in deliberating and judging.

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

...for all men do their acts with a view to achieving something which is, in their view, a good.

All things are full of gods.

To Unlearn is as hard as to Learn

And, speaking generally, passion seems not to be amenable to reason, but only to force.

It is the repeated performance of just and temperate actions that produces virtue.

People never know each other until they have eaten a certain amount of salt together.

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each (inanimate) instrument could do its own work.

The good lawgiver should inquire how states and races of men and communities may participate in a good life, and in the happiness which is attainable by them.

One has no friend who has many friends.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

At first he who invented any art that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to its recreation, the inventors of the latter were always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility.

Music imitates (represents) the passions or states of the soul, such as gentleness, anger, courage, temperance, and their opposites.

For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize... They were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.

The argument of Alcidamas: Everyone honours the wise. Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, and honour him even to this day.

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

Yet the true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme povery lowers the character of the democracy; measures therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity; and as this is equally the interest of all classes, the proceeds of the public revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor, if possible, in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a little farm, or, at any rate, make a beginning in trade or husbandry.

All men desire by nature to know.

Since music has so much to do with the molding of character, it is necessary that we teach it to our children.

The science that studies the supreme good for man is politics.

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

When there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom

Great is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property.

Man by Nature desires to know.

For the more limited, if adequate, is always preferable.

There is honor in being a dog.

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.

Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.

If men think that a ruler is religious and has a reverence for the Gods, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands.

We must speak first about the division of land and about those who cultivate it: who should they be and what kind of person? We do not agree with those who have said that property should be communally owned, but we do believe that there should be a friendly arrangement for its common use, and that none of the citizens should be without means of support.

There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.

The continuum is that which is divisible into indivisibles that are infinitely divisible.

The ridiculous is produced by any defect that is unattended by pain, or fatal consequences; thus, an ugly and deformed countenance does not fail to cause laughter, if it is not occasioned by pain.

The ideal man is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy.

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.

Knowledge of the fact differs from knowledge of the reason for the fact.