Aristotle quotes

Born
384 BC Stagira, Chalcidice, Northern Greece, Kingdom of Macedon.

Died
322 BC.

Occupation
Philosopher, scientist.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
– Aristotle

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
– Aristotle

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
– Aristotle

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Hope is a waking dream.
– Aristotle

Friendship is essentially a partnership.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
– Aristotle

The law is reason, free from passion.
– Aristotle

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
– Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
– Aristotle

We make war that we may live in peace.
– Aristotle

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
– Aristotle

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
– Aristotle

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
– Aristotle

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.
– Aristotle

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
– Aristotle

Bad men are full of repentance.
– Aristotle

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Man is by nature a political animal.
– Aristotle

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
– Aristotle

All men by nature desire knowledge.
– Aristotle

The secret to humor is surprise.
– Aristotle

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
– Aristotle

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
– Aristotle

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
– Aristotle

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
– Aristotle

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
– Aristotle

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
– Aristotle

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
– Aristotle

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
– Aristotle

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
– Aristotle

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
– Aristotle

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.
– Aristotle

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
– Aristotle

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
– Aristotle

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Wit is educated insolence.
– Aristotle

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
– Aristotle

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
– Aristotle

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
– Aristotle

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
– Aristotle

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
– Aristotle

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
– Aristotle

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
– Aristotle

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Well begun is half done.
– Aristotle

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
– Aristotle

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
– Aristotle

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
– Aristotle

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
– Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
– Aristotle

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
– Aristotle

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
– Aristotle

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
– Aristotle

Man is the only animal capable of reasoning, though many others possess the faculty of memory and instruction in common with him.
– Aristotle

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.
– Aristotle

The end of labor is to gain leisure.
– Aristotle

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
– Aristotle

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
– Aristotle

Nature does nothing in vain.
– Aristotle

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
– Aristotle

Change in all things is sweet.
– Aristotle

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
– Aristotle

The soul never thinks without a picture.
– Aristotle