Aristotle Quotes
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And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
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Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
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The life of children, as much as that of intemperate men, is wholly governed by their desires.
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The soul becomes prudent by sitting and being quiet.
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Character is revealed through action.
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A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.
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The most important relationship we can all have is the one you have with yourself, the most important journey you can take is one of self-discovery. To know yourself, you must spend time with yourself, you must not be afraid to be alone. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
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All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight. Not only with a view to action, but even when no action is contemplated, we prefer sight, generally speaking, to all the other senses. The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions.
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There are still two forms besides democracy and oligarchy; one of them is universally recognized and included among the four principal forms of government, which are said to be (1) monarchy, (2) oligarchy, (3) democracy, and (4) the so-called aristocracy or government of the best. But there is also a fifth, which retains the generic name of polity or constitutional government.
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People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.
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Hope is a waking dream.
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Nature operates in the shortest way possible.
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Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.
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The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief.
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Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
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Art is a higher type of knowledge than experience.
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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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It is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habit.
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Of mankind in general, the parts are greater than the whole.
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Prayers and sacrifices are of no avail.