Aristotle Quotes
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Worthless persons appointed to have supreme control of weighty affairs do a lot of damage.
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All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves...
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No one who desires to become good will become good unless he does good things.
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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 young are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.
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Indeed, we may go further and assert that anyone who does not delight in fine actions is not even a good man.
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A body in motion can maintain this motion only if it remains in contact with a mover.
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We, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion.
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The coward calls the brave man rash, the rash man calls him a coward.
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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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It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
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Now property is part of a household, and the acquisition of property part of household-management; for neither life itself nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities.
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Virtues cannot exist without Prudence. A proof of this is that everyone, even at the present day, in defining Virtue, after saying what disposition it is and specifying the things with which it is concerned, adds that it is a disposition determined by the right principle; and the right principle is the principle determined by Prudence.
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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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For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the well is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.
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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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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 attainment of truth is then the function of both the intellectual parts of the soul. Therefore their respective virtues are those dispositions which will best qualify them to attain truth.
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Most people would rather give than get affection.
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Great is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property.
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Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.
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A city is composed of different kinds of men; similar people cannot bring a city into existence.
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Men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
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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.