Aristotle Quotes
-
So that the lover of myths, which are a compact of wonders, is by the same token a lover of wisdom.
-
The same thing may have all the kinds of causes, e.g. the moving cause of a house is the art or the builder, the final cause is the function it fulfils, the matter is earth and stones, and the form is the definitory formula.
-
Of the irrational part of the soul again one division appears to be common to all living things, and of a vegetative nature.
-
The student of politics therefore as well as the psychologist must study the nature of the soul.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
-
One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect at the same time.
-
One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.
-
Experience has shown that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a populous state to be run by good laws.
-
And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war.
-
It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.
-
There also appears to be another element in the soul, which, though irrational, yet in a manner participates in rational principle.
-
Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.
-
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.
-
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.
-
It is not easy to determine the nature of music, or why any one should have a knowledge of it.
-
We must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils.
-
Nature of man is not what he was born as, but what he is born for.
-
The soul consists of two parts, one irrational and the other capable of reason. Whether these two parts are really distinct in the sense that the parts of the body or of any other divisible whole are distinct, or whether though distinguishable in thought as two they are inseparable in reality, like the convex and concave of a curve, is a question of no importance for the matter in hand.
-
We ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things....We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible, and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.
-
If then it be possible that one contrary should exist, or be called into existence, the other contrary will also appear to be possible.
-
The happy man . . . will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way.
-
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.