Aristotle Quotes
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All are agreed that the various moral qualities are in a sense bestowed by nature: we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess the natural dispositions, yet without Intelligence these may manifestly be harmful.
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Everyone honors the wise.
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Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
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It is our actions and the soul's active exercise of its functions that we posit as being Happiness.
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You can never learn anything that you did not already know.
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Of mankind in general, the parts are greater than the whole.
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The physician heals, Nature makes well.
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Men become richer not only by increasing their existing wealth but also by decreasing their expenditure.
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A man's happiness consists in the free exercise of his highest faculties.
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It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.
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We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends behave to us.
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The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
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Every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.
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Adventure is worthwhile.
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We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means.
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Happiness is the utilization of one's talents along lines of excellence.
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We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference.
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You are what you do repeatedly.
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For any two portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the less, just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size.
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The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education.
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Suppose, then, that all men were sick or deranged, save one or two of them who were healthy and of right mind. It would then be the latter two who would be thought to be sick and deranged and the former not!
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...for all men do their acts with a view to achieving something which is, in their view, a good.