Aristotle quotes

Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.

• 22
• personality

Wit is educated insolence.

• 22
• intelligence

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

• 20
• habits

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

• 20
• anticipation

Memory is the scribe of the soul.

• 20
• memory

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

• 20
• friendship

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

• 18
• control

The secret to humor is surprise.

• 17
• humor

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

• 17
• madness

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.

• 16
• goodness

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

• 16
• goals

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

• 16
• actions

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

• 15
• difference

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

• 15
• friendship

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

• 15
• excellence

To perceive is to suffer.

• 14
• empathy

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

• 14
• potential

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.

• 13
• teaching

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

• 12
• rest

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

• 12
• confidence

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

• 12
• actions

Nature does nothing uselessly.

• 11
• nature

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

• 10
• education

Hope is the dream of a waking man.

• 9
• hope

Well begun is half done.

• 9
• actions

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

• 9
• animals

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

• 9
• character

To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.

• 9
• authors

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

• 9
• evil

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

• 9
• friends

The soul never thinks without a picture.

• 9
• soul

Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.

• 9
• humor

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

• 8
• friends

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

• 8
• actions

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

• 8
• bravery

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.

• 8
• braves

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

• 8
• youth

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

• 8
• awareness

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

• 7
• deceptionlying

Obstinate people can be divded into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.

• 7
• stubbornness

We make war that we may live in peace.

• 7
• peace

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

• 7
• confidence

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

• 7
• poverty

One thing alone not even God can do,To make undone whatever hath been done.

• 7

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

• 6
• being

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

• 6
• mean

This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.

• 6
• children

It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize.

• 5
• knowledge

Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.

• 5
• freedom

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.

• 5
• equality

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.

• 5
• arrangement

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

• 5
• responsibility

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

• 5
• morals

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

• 5
• fear

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

• 5
• beauty

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

• 5
• democracy

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

• 5
• truth

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

• 5
• dignity

To the query, What is a friend? his reply was A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

• 5
• friends

The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.

• 5
• tragedy

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

• 5
• poetry

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

• 4
• solitude

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

• 4
• empire

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

• 4
• politics

Cruel is the strife of brothers.

• 4
• family

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

• 3
• create

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

• 3
• character

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

• 3
• hope

Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard.

• 3
• praise

It's best to rise from life like a banquet, neither thirsty or drunken.

• 3
• moderation

Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.

• 3
• crime

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

• 3
• class

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

• 3
• nature

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

• 3
• acquire

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.

• 3
• education

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

• 3
• virtue

...happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it...

• 2
• happiness

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

• 2
• happiness

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.

• 2
• anger

In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interests are at stake.

• 2
• revolution

Bad men are full of repentance.

• 2
• forgiveness

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

• 2
• arms

The gods too are fond of a joke.

• 2
• fond

What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.

• 2

The law is reason, free from passion.

• 2
• law

Man is by nature a political animal.

• 2
• humanity

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

• 2
• art

For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.

• 2
• success

Democracy 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.

• 2
• absolutely

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

• 2
• suffering

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.

• 2
• another

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

• 2
• art

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

• 2
• decline

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

• 2
• absorb

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.

• 1
• choose

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

• 1
• politics

It is easy to fly into a passion... anybody can do that, but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time and in the right way that is not easy.

• 1
• bravery

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

• 1
• justice

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

• 1
• truth

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

• 1
• equality

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

• 1
• bats

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.

• 1
• different

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

• 1
• alike

Homer has taught all other poets the are of telling lies skillfully.

• 1
• poetry

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

• 1
• appearance

Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.

• 1
• happiness

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.

• 1
• equality

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.

• 1
• best

Philosophy is the science which considers truth.

• 1

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

• 1
• trouble

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

• 1
• virtue

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.

• 1
• soul

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

• 1
• politics

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

• 1
• action

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

• 1
• creates

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

• 1
• friendship

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

• politics

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

• attribute

A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.

• action

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

• persuasion