Aristotle Quotes
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The first principle of all action is leisure.
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You should never think without an image.
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Patience is so like fortitude that she seems either her sister or her daughter.
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These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.
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It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state.
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He who hath many friends hath none.
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If then nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of them for the sake of man.
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Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.
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Both Self-restraint and Unrestraint are a matter of extremes as compared with the character of the mass of mankind; the restrained man shows more and the unrestrained man less steadfastness than most men are capable of.
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In order to be effective you need not only virtue but also mental strength.
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Speeches are like babies-easy to conceive but hard to deliver.
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The specific excellence of verbal expression in poetry is to be clear without being low.
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All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
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He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin ... will obtain the clearest view of them.
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It would be wrong to put friendship before the truth.
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Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them.
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Only an armed people can be truly free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved.
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The wise man knows of all things, as far as possible, although he has no knowledge of each of them in detail.
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Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage.
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Nothing in life is more necessary than friendship.
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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.
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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.
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He who cannot see the truth for himself, nor, hearing it from others, store it away in his mind, that man is utterly worthless.
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It is impossible for motion to subsist without place, and void, and time.