51 QUOTES OF ARISTOTLE

 

 

Aristotle

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, together with Socrates and Plato, laid much of the groundwork for western philosophy. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing.

 

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

 

2. All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

 

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

 

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

 

5. He who hath many friends hath none.

 

6. 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.

 

7.  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.

 

8.  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.

 

9.  We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

 

10.  We make war that we may live in peace.

 

11.  No one loves the man whom he fears.

 

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

 

13.  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.

 

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

 

15.  The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

 

16.  Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

 

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

 

18.  Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

 

19.  In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

 

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

 

21.  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.

 

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

 

23.  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.

 

24.  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.

 

25. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

 

26.  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.

 

27.  Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

 

28.  There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.

 

29. What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

 

30.  Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

 

31.  Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

 

32. 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.

 

33.  No one loves the man whom he fears.

 

34. The secret to humor is surprise.

 

35.  A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

 

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

 

37.  Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

 

38.  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.

 

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

 

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

 

41. 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.

 

42. If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

 

43.  Education is the best provision for old age.

 

44.  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.

 

45. Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

 

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

 

47.  All men by nature desire knowledge.

 

48.  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.

 

49.  Hope is the dream of a waking man.

 

50.  The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

 

51.  This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.