Aristotle Politics Quotes & Sayings

For millennia, man remained what he was for Aristotle: a living animal with the additional capacity for a political existence; modern man is an animal whose politics places his existence as a living being in question — Michel Foucault

A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible. What is best is happiness, and to be happy is an active exercise of virtue and a complete employment of it. — Aristotle.

The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the "philosophy of human affairs;" but more frequently Political or Social Science. — Aristotle.

modern humanist education believes in teaching students to think for themselves. It is good to know what Aristotle, Solomon and Aquinas thought about politics, art and economics; yet since the supreme source of meaning and authority lies within ourselves, it is far more important to know what you think about these matters. — Yuval Noah Harari

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

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

Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile? — Aristotle.

Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. — Aristotle.

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

Now property is part of a household, and the acquisition of property part of household-management; for neither life itself nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities. — Aristotle.

Americans have all these classes that mean they just know odd things, so engineers know about William Blake and poets know about analytical geometry. She probably took one on Aristotle and the politics of gender. — Deborah Meyler

Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or, at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned. — Aristotle.

But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process.
Without that, he said, the wolves will take over. — Carl Sagan

If the spirit of their intercourse were still the same after their coming together as it had been when they were living apart,' Aristotle writes, their association can't really be considered a polis, or political community.
'A polis is not an association for residence on a common site, or for the sake of preventing mutual injustice and easing exchange.' While these conditions are necessary to a polis, they are not sufficient. 'The end and purpose of a polis is the good life, and the institutions of social life are means to that end. — Michael J. Sandel

Infuriatingly stupid analysts - especially people who called themselves Arabists, yet who seemed to know next to nothing about the reality of the Islamic world - wrote reams of commentary [after 9/11]. Their articles were all about Islam saving Aristotle and the zero, which medieval Muslim scholars had done more than eight hundred years ago; about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled — Aristotle.

For each individual among the many has a share of excellence and practical wisdom, and when they meet together, just as they become in a manner one man, who has many feet, and hands, and senses, so too with regard to their character and thought. Hence the many are better judges than a single man of music and poetry, for some understand one part, and some another, and among them they understand the whole. (Aristotle, Politics, book 3, chapter 11) — Scott E. Page

The student of politics must study the soul. — Aristotle.

The life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for. — Aristotle.

Human beings are by nature political animals — Aristotle.

Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state. — Aristotle.

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

If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse.
And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible. — Blaise Pascal

So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean. — Aristotle.

Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit. — Aristotle.

Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia. — Aristotle.

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

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

Property should be in a general sense common, but as a general rule private ... In well-ordered states, although every man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use of them. — Aristotle.

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

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. — Aristotle.

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace. — Aristotle.

Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. [ ... ] These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. [ ... ] To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle 's Politics are out of date. — Barry Goldwater

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

Those that deem politics beneath their dignity are doomed to be governed by those of lesser talents. — Aristotle.