Aristotle Quotes
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In the human species at all events there is a great diversity of pleasures. The same things delight some men and annoy others, and things painful and disgusting to some are pleasant and attractive to others.
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The virtues [moral excellence] 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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Now what is just and right is to be interpreted in the sense of 'what is equal'; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.
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It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized.
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The argument of Alcidamas: Everyone honours the wise. Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, and honour him even to this day.
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Metaphysics is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which it has.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.
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Hippocrates is an excellent geometer but a complete fool in everyday affairs.
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The light of the day is followed by night, as a shadow follows a body.
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To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.
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It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.
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All men by nature desire knowledge.
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A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.
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Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.
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To leave the number of births unrestricted, as is done in most states, inevitably causes poverty among the citizens, and poverty produces crime and faction.
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Nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office.
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If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.
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There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able to reason logically, to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.
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That which most contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of education to the form of government, and yet in our own day this principle is universally neglected. The best laws, though sanctioned by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution.
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Phronimos, possessing practical wisdom . But the only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom; all the others must be possessed, so it seems, both by rulers and ruled. The virtue of a person being ruled is not practical wisdom but correct opinion; he is rather like a person who makes the pipes, while the ruler is the one who can play them.
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If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.
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Of means of persuading by speaking there are three species: some consist in the character of the speaker; others in the disposing the hearer a certain way; others in the thing itself which is said, by reason of its proving, or appearing to prove the point.
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To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
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Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.