Aristotle

Quotes

A friend is a second self.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.
The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.
Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.
it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
Happiness is a state of activity.
One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.
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.
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.
Evil brings men together.
When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.
How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.
If some animals are good at hunting and others are suitable for hunting, then the Gods must clearly smile on hunting.
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way... you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
The gods too are fond of a joke
The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.
Education is the best provision for old age.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
All men by nature desire knowledge.
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.
We must as second best...take the least of the evils.
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.
To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
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.
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
They should rule who are able to rule best.
A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.
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 the government to the utmost.
Well begun is half done.
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
Law is order, and good law is good order.
Evil draws men together.
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end.
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
To give money is an easy matter and in any man's power. But to decide to whom to give it, and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in everyman's power nor an easy matter.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
To love someone is to identify with them.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.
It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
Law is mind without reason.
To perceive is to suffer.
Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.
To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
The Pythagorean ... having been brought up in the study of mathematics, thought that things are numbers ... and that the whole cosmos is a scale and a number.
Wit is educated insolence.
We make war that we may live in peace.
All men desire to know.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
Bad men are full of repentance.
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
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.
In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
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.
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Nature does nothing uselessly.
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty -- excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beauty, or at any rate understandable -- should persist after the beauty was gone.
The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
The gods too are fond of a joke.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
The secret to humor is surprise.
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.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.
We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
One swallow does not make a summer.
Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.
Hope is a waking dream.
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.