Aristotle Quotes
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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.
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There is nothing unequal as the equal treatment of unequals.
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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 life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.
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Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.
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Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
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The good lawgiver should inquire how states and races of men and communities may participate in a good life, and in the happiness which is attainable by them.
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The continuum is that which is divisible into indivisibles that are infinitely divisible.
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We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
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If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.
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Why do men seek honour? Surely in order to confirm the favorable opinion they have formed of themselves.
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Tools may be animate as well as inanimate; for instance, a ship's captain uses a lifeless rudder, but a living man for watch; for a servant is, from the point of view of his craft, categorized as one of its tools. So any piece of property can be regarded as a tool enabling a man to live, and his property is an assemblage of such tools; a slave is a sort of living piece of property; and like any other servant is a tool in charge of other tools.
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One citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.
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He overcomes a stout enemy who overcomes his own anger.
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In the soul one part naturally rules, and the other is subject, and the virtue of the ruler we maintain to be different from that of the subject; the one being the virtue of the rational, and the other of the irrational part. Now, it is obvious that the same principle applies generally, and therefore almost all things rule and are ruled according to nature.
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It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.
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No one chooses what does not rest with himself, but only what he thinks can be attained by his own act.
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Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.
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Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.
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A friend to all is a friend to none.
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In inventing a model we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.
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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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It is clear, then, that the earth must be at the centre and immovable, not only for the reasons already given, but also because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite straight upward return to the point from which they started, even if they are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations then it is clear that the earth does not move and does not lie elsewhere than at the centre.
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A man can make up his mind quickly when he has only a little to make up.