Aristotle Quotes

The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing.

Man by Nature desires to know.

One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect at the same time.

If, therefore, there is any one superior in virtue and in the power of performing the best actions, him we ought to follow and obey, but he must have the capacity for action as well as virtue.

A speaker who is attempting to move people to thought or action must concern himself with Pathos.

In most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.

The appropriate age for marrige is around eighteen and thirty-seven for man

Conscientious and careful physicians allocate causes of disease to natural laws, while the ablest scientists go back to medicine for their first principles.

Not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education.

That body is heavier than another which, in an equal bulk, moves downward quicker.

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.

Friendship is two souls inhabiting one body.

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

A vivid image compels the whole body to follow.

Not to get what you have set your heart on is almost as bad as getting nothing at all.

Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil and, if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty.

... There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity.

The shape of the heaven is of necessity spherical; for that is the shape most appropriate to its substance and also by nature primary.

Talent is culture with insolence.

The man who confers a favour would rather not be repaid in the same coin.

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.

It is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are energeia [energy], while others are products which are additional to the energeia.

When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name - a constitution.

By 'life,' we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.

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.

No one chooses what does not rest with himself, but only what he thinks can be attained by his own act.

Anybody can get hit over the head.

The virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.

So, if we must give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we must describe it as the first actuality [entelechy] of anatural organized body.

Of the irrational part of the soul again one division appears to be common to all living things, and of a vegetative nature.

Even if we could suppose the citizen body to be virtuous, without each of them being so, yet the latter would be better, for in the virtue of each the virtue of all is involved.

If then nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of them for the sake of man.

Whether we call it sacrifice, or poetry, or adventure, it is always the same voice that calls.

What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa.

That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.

Water was something he loved, something he respected. He understood its beauty and its dangers. He talked about swimming as if it were a way of life.

Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity.

Friends enhance our ability to think and act.

That which is excellent endures.

The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist.

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.

But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, - is this just?

Nothing is what rocks dream about

The democrats think that as they are equal they ought to be equal in all things.

It is no easy task to be good.

A very populous city can rarely, if ever, be well governed.

Speeches are like babies-easy to conceive but hard to deliver.

Whether we will philosophize or we won't philosophize, we must philosophize.