Aristotle Quotes

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Our account does not rob the mathematicians of their science... In point of fact they do not need the infinite and do not use it.

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.

95% of everything you do is the result of habit.

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

Choice not chance determines your destiny [my family motto...credited to Aristotle]

Happiness itself is sufficient excuse. Beautiful things are right and true; so beautiful actions are those pleasing to the gods. Wise men have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it. The answer to the last appeal of what is right lies within a man's own breast. Trust thyself.

A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.

If the art of ship-building were in the wood, ships would exist by nature.

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily.

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

A speaker who is attempting to move people to thought or action must concern himself with Pathos.

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.

But then in what way are things called good? They do not seem to be like the things that only chance to have the same name. Are goods one then by being derived from one good or by all contributing to one good, or are they rather one by analogy? Certainly as sight is in the body, so is reason in the soul, and so on in other cases.

Xenophanes states that the fire in Lipara once failed for sixteen years, but returned in the seventeenth year. They say that the lava-stream in Etna is neither flaming nor continuous, but returns only after an interval of many years.

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

The student of politics therefore as well as the psychologist must study the nature of the soul.

Our problem is not that we aim too high and miss, but that we aim too low and hit.

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.

Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, therein lies your vocation. These two, your talents and the needs of the world, are the great wake up calls to your true vocation in life... to ignore this, is in some sense, is to lose your soul.

For any two portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the less, just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size.

The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants.

That which is excellent endures.

But nothing is yet clear on the subject of the intellect and the contemplative faculty. However, it seems to be another kind of soul, and this alone admits of being separated, as that which is eternal from that which is perishable, while it is clear from these remarks that the other parts of the soul are not separable, as some assert them to be, though it is obvious that they are conceptually distinct.

All human happiness and misery take the form of action.

The bad man is continually at war with, and in opposition to, himself.

Art takes nature as its model.

Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage.

Most men appear to think that the art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of practicing towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, but where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such behavior is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice . .

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

The man with a host of friends who slaps on the back everybody he meets is regarded as the friend of nobody.

To be always seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls.

"I was not alone when I was in Goofy hell"

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.

Greed has no boundaries

Experience has shown that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a populous state to be run by good laws.

Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.

Fortune favours the bold.

Beauty is a gift of God.

Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.

They - Young People have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things - and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning - all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything - they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.

There is a cropping-time in the races of men, as in the fruits of the field; and sometimes, if the stock be good, there springs up for a time a succession of splendid men; and then comes a period of barrenness.

...one Greek city state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged.

The mass of mankind are evidently slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts.

We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.