Aristotle. Quotes & Sayings

The principles in question must be either (a) one or (b) more than one. (15) If (a) one, it must be either (i) motionless, as Parmenides and Melissus assert, or (ii) in motion, as the physicists hold, some declaring air to be the first principle, others water. If (b) more than one, then either (i) a finite or (ii) an infinite plurality. If (i) finite (but more than one), then either two or three or four or some other number. (20) If (ii) infinite, then either as Democritus believed one in kind, but differing in shape or form; or different in kind and even contrary. — Aristotle.

The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness. — Aristotle.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition. — Aristotle.

The soul of animals is characterized by two faculties, (a) the faculty of discrimination which is the work of thought and sense, and (b) the faculty of originating local movement. — Aristotle.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures. — Aristotle.

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

For imitation is natural to man from his infancy. Man differs from other animals particularly in this, that he is imitative, and acquires his rudiments of knowledge in this way; besides, the delight in it is universal. — Aristotle.

The proud man, then, is an extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he claims what is accordance with his merits, while the others go to excess or fall short. — Aristotle.

The final cause, then, produces motion through being loved. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference. — Aristotle.

The more you know, the more you know that you don't know. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

Talent is culture with insolence. — Aristotle.

The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to. — Aristotle.

That which is excellent endures. — Aristotle.

The best way to avoid envy is to deserve the success you get. — Aristotle.

Although it may be difficult in theory to know what is just and equal, the practical difficulty of inducing those to forbear who can, if they like, encroach, is far greater, for the weaker are always asking for equality and justice, but the stronger care for none of these things. — Aristotle.

There is nothing strange in the circle being the origin of any and every marvel. — Aristotle.

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit. — Aristotle.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. — Aristotle.

We must be neither cowardly nor rash but courageous. — Aristotle.

Personal beauty requires that one should be tall; little people may have charm and elegance, but beauty-no. — Aristotle.

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. — Aristotle.

It belongs to small-mindedness to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad, but to be filled with conceit when honored and puffed up by trifling good fortune, and to be unable to bear even the smallest dishonor and to deem any chance failure a great misfortune, and to be distressed and annonyed at everything. Moreover the small-minded man is the sort of person to call all slights an insult and dishonor, even those that are due to ignorance or forgetfulness. Small-mindedness is accompanied by pettiness, querulousness, pessimism and self-abasement. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

Distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it. — Aristotle.

Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked. — Aristotle.

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader. — Aristotle.

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

A man becomes a friend whenever being loved he loves in return. — Aristotle.

The present work is, then, the masterpiece of one particular literary genre that flourished in the fourth century BC in Greece, that of the rhetorical manual, and it is a remarkable fact that it should have fallen to Aristotle to write it. It — Aristotle.

Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good had been aptly described as that at which everything aims. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

We become brave by doing brave acts. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

Nature does nothing in vain. — Aristotle.

Adventure is worthwhile. — Aristotle.

The void is 'not-being,' and no part of 'what is' is a 'not-being,'; for what 'is' in the strict sense of the term is an absolute plenum. This plenum, however, is not 'one': on the contrary, it is a 'many' infinite in number and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk. — Aristotle.

A city is composed of different kinds of men; similar people cannot bring a city into existence. — Aristotle.

To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men. — Aristotle.

The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place. — Aristotle.

So the good has been well explained as that at which all things aim. — Aristotle.

It is likely that unlikely things should happen — Aristotle.

The virtue as the art consecrates itself constantly to what's difficult to do, and the harder the task, the shinier the success. — Aristotle.

Now that practical skills have developed enough to provide adequately for material needs, one of these sciences which are not devoted to utilitarian ends [mathematics] has been able to arise in Egypt, the priestly caste there having the leisure necessary for disinterested research. — Aristotle.

If purpose, then, is inherent in art, so is it in Nature also. The best illustration is the case of a man being his own physician, for Nature is like that - agent and patient at once. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

The gods too are fond of a joke. — Aristotle.

Of cases where a man is truthful both in speech and conduct when no considerations of honesty come in, from an habitual sincerity of disposition. Such sincerity may be esteemed a moral excellence; for the lover of truth, who is truthful even when nothing depends on it, will a fortiori be truthful when some interest is at stake, since having all along avoided falsehood for its own sake, he will assuredly avoid it when it is morally base; and this is a disposition that we praise. — Aristotle.

All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature. — Aristotle.

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

The production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet. — Aristotle.

Should a man live underground, and there converse with the works of art and mechanism, and should afterwards be brought up into the open day, and see the several glories of the heaven and earth, he would immediately pronounce them the work of such a Being as we define God to be. — Aristotle.

We have next to consider the formal definition of virtue. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

There is no great genius without a mixture of madness — Aristotle.

For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant. — Aristotle.

Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions. — Aristotle.

History describes what has happened, poetry what might. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and serious than history; for poetry speaks of what is universal, history of what is particular. — Aristotle.

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

A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end. — Aristotle.

The majority of mankind would seem to be beguiled into error by pleasure, which, not being really a good, yet seems to be so. So that they indiscriminately choose as good whatsoever gives them pleasure, while they avoid all pain alike as evil. — Aristotle.

As far as the name goes, we may almist say that the great majority of mankind are agreed about this; for both the multitude and the persons of refinement speak of it as happiness, and conceive 'the good life' or 'doing well' to be the same thing as 'being happy. — Aristotle.

Happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely. — Aristotle.

we cannot be prudent without being good. — Aristotle.

For nature by the same cause, provided it remain in the same condition, always produces the same effect, so that either coming-to-be or passing-away will always result. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it ... then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords. — Aristotle.

Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. — Aristotle.

Patience is so like fortitude that she seems either her sister or her daughter. — Aristotle.

One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name. — Aristotle.

We must become just be doing just acts. — Aristotle.

Thus we must advance from generalities to particulars; for it is a whole that is best known to sense-perception, (25) and a generality is a kind of whole, comprehending many things within it, like parts. — Aristotle.

Moral virtue is a mean ... between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; ... it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything. — Aristotle.

Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once, and so there will be no unity and completeness. — Aristotle.

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity. — Aristotle.

Man first begins to philosophize when the necessities of life are supplied. — Aristotle.

By 'life,' we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay. — Aristotle.

Beside these there is no other way; for the act is necessarily either done or not done, and those who act either have knowledge or do not. — Aristotle.

Injustice results as much from treating unequals equally as from treating equals unequally. — Aristotle.

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods. — Aristotle.

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed. — Aristotle.

It is clear that the earth does not move, and that it does not lie elsewhere than at the center. — Aristotle.

The eyes of some persons are large, others small, and others of a moderate size; the last-mentioned are the best. And some eyes are projecting, some deep-set, and some moderate, and those which are deep-set have the most acute vision in all animals; the middle position is a sign of the best disposition. — Aristotle.

When you ask a dumb question, you get a smart answer. — Aristotle.

The shape of the heaven is of necessity spherical; for that is the shape most appropriate to its substance and also by nature primary. — Aristotle.

The beautiful is that which is desirable in itself. — Aristotle.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects - things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language - either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors. — Aristotle.

Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos-
Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
But pleasantest is it to win what we love. — Aristotle.

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed. — Aristotle.

The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities. — Aristotle.

Happiness may be defined as good fortune joined to virtue, or a independence, or as a life that is both agreeable and secure. — Aristotle.

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. — Aristotle.

The only stable principle of government is equality according to proportion, and for every man to enjoy his own. — Aristotle.

The good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind. — Aristotle.

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

We are what we repatedy do. Excellance then is not an act but a habit — Aristotle.

Education and morals will be found almost the whole that goes to make a good man. — Aristotle.

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