Aristotle Quotes
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Most men appear to think that the art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of practicing towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, but where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such behavior is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice ...
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The form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.
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The virtues therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive them, and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.
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It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
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We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence. But they hesitate, waiting for the other fellow to make the first move-and he, in turn, waits for you.
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No state will be well administered unless the middle class holds sway.
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There are three things that are the motives of choice and three that are the motives of avoidance; namely, the noble, the expedient, and the pleasant, and their opposites, the base, the harmful, and the painful. Now in respect of all these the good man is likely to go right and the bad to go wrong, but especially in respect of pleasure; for pleasure is common to man with the lower animals, and also it is a concomitant of all the objects of choice, since both the noble and the expedient appear to us pleasant.
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Worms are the intestines of the earth.
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The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god.
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Demonstration is also something necessary, because a demonstration cannot go otherwise than it does, ... And the cause of this lies with the primary premises,principles.
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Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
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Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because life is sweet and they are growing.
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Persuasion is effected through the medium of the hearers, when they shall have been brought to a state of excitement under the influence of speech; for we do not, when influenced by pain or joy, or partiality or dislike, award our decisions in the same way; about which means of persuasion alone, I declare that the system-mongers of the present day busy themselves.
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For the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
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If, therefore, there is any one superior in virtue and in the power of performing the best actions, him we ought to follow and obey, but he must have the capacity for action as well as virtue.
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Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
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All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge.
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All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings; there’s too much corruption in the world.
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I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
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It is possible to fail in many ways . . . while to succeed is possible only in one way, for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult - to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult.
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The principle aim of gymnastics is the education of all youth and not simply that minority of people highly favored by nature.
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Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.
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The goal of war is peace, of business, leisure.
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For well-being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer, and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep; and its main front would face the south.