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Aristotle [-384--322] Greek

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian.

Men, Nature, Art, Friendship, Power, Best, Education, Politics, Truth, Courage, Equality, Fear, Happiness, Life, Work, Brainy, Government, Great, History, Hope, Intelligence, Knowledge, Poetry, Respect, Time, Wisdom, Age, Anger, Beauty, Business, Chance, Change, Death, God, Good, Humor, Jealousy, Love, Mom, Motivational, Peace, Religion, Science, Society, Teacher, Teen, Thankful, War

Quote	Tags	Rank
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.	Love	4
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.	Motivational	101
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.	Education	103
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.	Education	104
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.	Men, Politics	105
My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.	Best, Friendship	106
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.	Anger, Power, Time	107
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.	Art	108
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.	Great, Intelligence	109
The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.	Knowledge, Power, Teacher	110
Happiness depends upon ourselves.	Happiness	111
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.	Equality	112
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.	God	113
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.	Courage	114
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.	Life, Power	115
Hope is a waking dream.	Hope	116
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.	Work	117
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.	Best	118
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.	Art	119
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.		120
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.	Good, Teen	121
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.	Nature	122
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.	Best, Life	123
Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.		124
In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.	Power	125
To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.	Death	126
The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.		201
Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed.		202
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.	Friendship, Work	203
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.	Great, Life	204
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.	Nature	205
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.		206
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.		207
Bad men are full of repentance.	Men	208
The end of labor is to gain leisure.	Work	209
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.		210
Nature does nothing in vain.	Nature	211
Wit is educated insolence.	Intelligence	212
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.	Education	213
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.	Truth	214
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.		215
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.	Mom	216
Well begun is half done.	Brainy	217
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.	Beauty	218
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.	Brainy, Courage	219
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.	Fear	220
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.	Thankful	221
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.	Men	222
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.	Power	223
The secret to humor is surprise.	Humor	224
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.		225
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.	Religion	226
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.		301
We make war that we may live in peace.	Peace, War	302
We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.	Time	303
Friendship is essentially a partnership.	Friendship	304
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.		305
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.		306
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.	Art	307
The soul never thinks without a picture.		308
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.	Truth	309
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.		310
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.	Best	311
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.		312
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.	Hope	313
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.	Art	314
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.		315
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.	Truth	316
A friend to all is a friend to none.	Friendship	317
All men by nature desire knowledge.	Knowledge, Men, Nature	318
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.		319
Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.	History, Nature, Poetry	320
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.	Art	321
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.	Friendship, Men	322
For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.	Nature	323
Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.	Wisdom	324
Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.		325
The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.		326
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.	Art	401
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.	Men	402
Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.		403
We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.	Fear, Respect	404
In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a spectator of the action, he will discover what is in keeping with it, and be most unlikely to overlook inconsistencies.		405
Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.		406
The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.	Men, Truth	407
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.		408
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.		409
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.	Equality, Government	410
Change in all things is sweet.	Change	411
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.		412
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.	Equality, Respect	413
Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.		414
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.		415
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.	Age	416
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.		417
The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.		418
Man is by nature a political animal.	Nature, Politics	419
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.		420
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.	Government, Happiness	421
Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.		422
We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.		423
A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.		424
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.		425
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.	History, Poetry	426
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.		501
The law is reason, free from passion.		502
He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.		503
The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.		504
It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.	Business	505
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.		506
For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.		507
In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.		508
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.		509
Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.	Jealousy	510
The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.		511
Man is the only animal capable of reasoning, though many others possess the faculty of memory and instruction in common with him.		512
Long-lived persons have one or two lines which extend through the whole hand; short-lived persons have two lines not extending through the whole hand.		513
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.	Society	514
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.	Chance	515
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.		516
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.	Happiness, Politics	517
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.		518
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.		519
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.		520
The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects - things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language - either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.		521
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.	Fear	522
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.		523
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.		524
Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.		525
A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.		526
But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.		601
Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.		602
Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.		603
The eyes of some persons are large, others small, and others of a moderate size; the last-mentioned are the best. And some eyes are projecting, some deep-set, and some moderate, and those which are deep-set have the most acute vision in all animals; the middle position is a sign of the best disposition.		604
Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.		605
Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.		606
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.		607
No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.		608
We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.		609
Most people would rather give than get affection.		610
Education is the best provision for old age.	Education	611
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.	Wisdom	612
It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.		613
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.	Politics, Science	614
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.		615
No one loves the man whom he fears.		616
He who hath many friends hath none.	Friendship	617
For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.		618
Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.	Courage	619
A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.		620
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.		621
The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.		622
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.		623
To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.		624
The gods too are fond of a joke.		625
Law is mind without reason.		626

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