Aristotle Quotes
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Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily.
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In bad or corrupted natures the body will often appear to rule over the soul, because they are in an evil and unnatural condition. At all events we may firstly observe in living creatures both a despotical and a constitutional rule; for the soul rules the body with a despotical rule, whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and royal rule. And it is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is natural and expedient; whereas the equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful.
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Nature of man is not what he was born as, but what he is born for.
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If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.
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Experience has shown that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a populous state to be run by good laws.
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Laws, when good, should be supreme; and that the magistrate or magistrates should regulate those matters only on which the laws are unable to speak with precision owing to the difficulty of any general principle embracing all particulars.
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. . . the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's.
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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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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 investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.
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The first essential responsibility of the state is control of the market-place: there must be some official charged with the duty of seeing that honest dealing and good order prevail. For one of the well-nigh essential activities of all states is the buying and selling of goods to meet their mutual basic needs; this is the quickest way to self-sufficiency, which seems to be what moves men to combine under a single constitution.
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People generally despise where they flatter.
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Something is infinite if, taking it quantity by quantity, we can always take something outside.
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No one who desires to become good will become good unless he does good things.
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To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.
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Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.
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The good man is he for whom, because he is virtuous, the things that are absolutely good are good; it is also plain that his use of these goods must be virtuous and in the absolute sense good.
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It is not easy to determine the nature of music, or why any one should have a knowledge of it.
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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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The essential nature cannot be corporeal, yet it is also clear that this soul is present in a particular bodily part, and this one of the parts having control over the rest.
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No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.
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Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
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One kind of justice is that which is manifested in distributions of honour or money or the other things that fall to be divided among those who have a share in the constitution ... and another kind is that which plays a rectifying part in transactions.
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The same ideas, one must believe, recur in men's minds not once or twice but again and again.