Aristotle Quotes

Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.

Speech is the representation of the mind, and writing is the representation of speech.

The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.

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.

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

Excellence is not an art. It is the habit of practice.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain.

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

Greatness of spirit is accompanied by simplicity and sincerity.

Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others.

All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.

Authority is no source for Truth.

A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.

We laugh at that which we cannot bear to face.

We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.

Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.

Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to Health

Youth loves honor and victory more than money.

The bad man is continually at war with, and in opposition to, himself.

Nature creates nothing without a purpose.

We can do noble acts without ruling the earth and sea.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, 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.

We are better able to study our neighbours than ourselves, and their actions than our own.

It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.

. . . the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's.

There are no experienced young people. Time makes experience.

To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.

It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

We must become just be doing just acts.

Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.

The physician heals, Nature makes well.

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions — what we do — that we are happy or the reverse.

The mass of mankind are evidently slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts.

The brave man, if he be compared with the coward, seems foolhardy; and, if with the foolhardy man, seems a coward.

The soul of animals is characterized by two faculties, (a) the faculty of discrimination which is the work of thought and sense, and (b) the faculty of originating local movement.

The specific excellence of verbal expression in poetry is to be clear without being low.

The goal of war is peace, of business, leisure

Happiness depends on ourselves.

If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.

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.

The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor.

Patience is so like fortitude that she seems either her sister or her daughter.

When you feel yourself lacking something, send your thoughts towards your Intimate and search for the Divinity that lives within you.

... the good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind.

The End is included among goods of the soul, and not among external goods.

...one Greek city state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged.

Teaching is the highest form of understanding.