Aristotle Quotes
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It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done.
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Equity is that idea of justice which contravenes the written law.
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Young men have strong passions and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the bodily desires, it is the sexual by which they are most swayed and in which they show absence of control...They are changeable and fickle in their desires which are violent while they last, but quickly over: their impulses are keen but not deep rooted.
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If some animals are good at hunting and others are suitable for hunting, then the Gods must clearly smile on hunting.
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Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct.
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The bodies of which the world is composed are solids, and therefore have three dimensions. Now, three is the most perfect number,-it is the first of numbers, for of one we do not speak as a number, of two we say both, but three is the first number of which we say all. Moreover, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
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Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.
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The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.
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In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.
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Plato is my friend, but truth is a better friend.
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The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.
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A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.
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They who have drunk beer, fall on their back, but there is a peculiarity in the effects of the drink made from barley, for they that get drunk on other intoxicating liquors fall on all parts of their body, they fall on the left side, on the right side, on their faces, and and on their backs. But it is only those who get drunk on beer that fall on their backs with their faces upward.
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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.
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The best way to teach morality is to make it a habit with children.
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Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.
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That judges of important causes should hold office for life is a disputable thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body.
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He is courageous who endures and fears the right thing, for the right motive, in the right way and at the right times.
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Any change of government which has to be introduced should be one which men, starting from their existing constitutions, will be both willing and able to adopt, since there is quite as much trouble in the reformation of an old constitution as in the establishment of a new one, just as to unlearn is as hard as to learn.
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Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it.
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That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill.
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It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous.
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There are, then, three states of mind ... two vices − that of excess, and that of defect; and one virtue − the mean; and all these are in a certain sense opposed to one another; for the extremes are not only opposed to the mean, but also to one another; and the mean is opposed to the extremes.
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No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise.