Aristotle Quotes
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Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice.
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A good style must have an air of novelty, at the same time concealing its art.
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As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail.
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The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.
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In inventing a model we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.
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We have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think; it seems to be a widely different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of existence in isolation from all other psychic powers.
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Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
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The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.
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The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry and limitations; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.
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In the perfect state the good man is absolutely the same as the good citizen; whereas in other states the good citizen is only good relatively to his own form of government.
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The citizens begin by giving up some part of the constitution, and so with greater ease the government change something else which is a little more important, until they have undermined the whole fabric of the state.
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Meanness is more ingrained in man's nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed.
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Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
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For those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not.
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For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one's strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.
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Some believe it to be just friends wanting, as if to be healthy enough to wish health.
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The student of politics therefore as well as the psychologist must study the nature of the soul.
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One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect at the same time.
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A period may be defined as a portion of speech that has in itself a beginning and an end, being at the same time not too big to be taken in at a glance.
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When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name - a constitution.
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The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws.
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The soul suffers when the body is diseased or traumatized, while the body suffers when the soul is ailing.
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For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of the Poet; while the other should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet.
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In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.