Quotes of Aristotle

Greek Philosopher - Aristotle

Born : Aristotle, Stageira, Chalcidice - 384 BC

Famous for : Influenced Western thought , worked with Plato and Alexander the Great, and his philosophical ideas.
died : Chalcis, Euboea - 322BC


Aristotle (Aristoteles) was a Greek scientist and philosopher. Along with Plato, he is often considered to be
one of the two most influential philosophers in Western thought.
Aristotle was born at Stagira, a Greek colony on the Macedonian peninsula Chalcidice in 384 BCE. His
father, Nicomachus, was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia. It is believed that Aristotle's
ancestors held this position under various kings of Macedonia. Aristotle was probably influenced by his
father's medical knowledge; when he went to Athens at the age of 18, he was likely already trained in the
investigation of natural phenomena.
From the ages of 18 to 37 Aristotle remained in Athens as a pupil of Plato and distinguished himself at the
Academe. The relations between Plato and Aristotle have formed the subject of various legends, many of
which depict Aristotle unfavourably. No doubt there were divergences of opinion between Plato, who took
his stand on sublime, idealistic principles, and Aristotle, who even at that time showed a preference for the
investigation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is also probable that Plato suggested that
Aristotle needed restraining rather than encouragement, but not that there was an open breach of
friendship. In fact, Aristotle's conduct after the death of Plato, his continued association with Xenocrates
and other Platonists, and his allusions in his writings to Plato's doctrines prove that while there were conflicts
of opinion between Plato and Aristotle, there was no lack of cordial appreciation or mutual forbearance.
Besides this, the legends that reflect Aristotle unfavourably are traceable to the Epicureans, who were
known as slanderers. If such legends were circulated widely by patristic writers such as Justin Martyr and
Gregory Nazianzen, the reason lies in the exaggerated esteem Aristotle was held in by the early Christian
heretics, not in any well-grounded historical tradition.


After the death of Plato (347 BCE), Aristotle went with Xenocrates to the court of Hermias, ruler of Atarneus
in Asia Minor, and married his niece and adopted daughter, Pythias. In 344 BCE, Hermias was murdered in a rebellion, and Aristotle went with his family to Mytilene. Then, one or two years later, he was summoned to
his native Stagira by King Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander the Great, who was then
13.
Plutarch wrote that Aristotle not only imparted to Alexander a knowledge of ethics and politics, but also of
the most profound secrets of philosophy. We have positive proof that Alexander profited by contact with
the philosopher, and that Aristotle made prudent and beneficial use of his influence over the young prince.
Due to this influence, Alexander provided Aristotle with ample means for the acquisition of books and the
pursuit of his scientific investigation, and it is quite likely that Alexander the Great's renowned military ability
can be traced, at least in part, to his relationship with Aristotle.
In about 335 BCE, Alexander departed for his Asiatic campaign, and Aristotle, who had served as an
informal adviser (more or less) since Alexander ascended the Macedonian throne, returned to Athens and
opened his own school of philosophy. He may, as Aulus Gellius says, have conducted a school of rhetoric
during his former residence in Athens; but now, following Plato's example, he gave regular instruction in
philosophy in a gymnasium dedicated to Apollo Lyceios, from which his school has come to be known as
the Lyceum. (It was also called the Peripatetic School because Aristotle preferred to discuss problems of
philosophy with his pupils while walking up and down -- peripateo -- the shaded walks -- peripatoi -- around
the gymnasium.)


During the thirteen years (335 BCE-322 BCE) which he spent as teacher of the Lyceum, Aristotle composed
most of his writings. Imitating Plato, he wrote "Dialogues" in which his doctrines were expounded in
somewhat popular language. He also composed the several treatises (which will be mentioned below) on
physics, metaphysics, and so forth, in which the exposition is more didactic and the language more
technical than in the "Dialogues". These writings show to what good use he put the resources Alexander had
provided for him. They show particularly how he succeeded in bringing together the works of his
predecessors in Greek philosophy, and how he pursued, either personally or through others, his
investigations in the realm of natural phenomena. Pliny claimed that Alexander placed under Aristotle's
orders all the hunters, fishermen, and fowlers of the royal kingdom and all the overseers of the royal forests,
lakes, ponds and cattle-ranges, and Aristotle's works on zoology make this statement more believeable.
Aristotle was fully informed about the doctrines of his predecessors, and Strabo asserted that he was the first
to accumulate a great library.
During the last years of Aristotle's life the relations between him and Alexander the Great became very
strained, owing to the disgrace and punishment of Callisthenes whom Aristotle had recommended to
Alexander. Nevertheless, Aristotle continued to be regarded at Athens as a friend of Alexander and a
representative of Macedonia. Consequently, when Alexander's death became known in Athens, and the
outbreak occurred which led to the Lamian war, Aristotle shared in the general unpopularity of the
Macedonians. The charge of impiety, which had been brought against Anaxagoras and Socrates, was
now, with even less reason, brought against Aristotle. He left the city, saying (according to many ancient
authorities) that he would not give the Athenians a chance to sin a third time against philosophy. He took
up residence at his country house at Chalcis, in Euboea, and there he died the following year, 322 BCE. His
death was due to a disease from which he had long suffered. The story that his death was due to hemlock
poisoning, as well as the legend that he threw himself into the sea "because he could not explain the tides,"
is without historical foundation.


Very little is known about Aristotle's personal appearance except from hostile sources. The statues and busts
of Aristotle, possibly from the first years of the Peripatetic School, represent him as sharp and keen of
countenance, and somewhat below the average height. His character (as revealed by his writings), his will
(which is undoubtedly genuine), fragments of his letters and the allusions of his unprejudiced
contemporaries, was that of a high-minded, kind-hearted man, devoted to his family and his friends, kind to
his slaves, fair to his enemies and rivals, grateful towards his benefactors. When Platonism ceased to
dominate the world of Christian speculation, and the works of Aristotle began to be studied without fear
and prejudice, the personality of Aristotle appeared to the Christian writers of the 13th century, as it had to
the unprejudiced pagan writers of his own day, as calm, majestic, untroubled by passion, and undimmed
by any great moral defects, "the master of those who know".



The end of labor is to gain leisure.
Aristotle

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

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.
Aristotle

The gods too are fond of a joke.
Aristotle

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

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

The law is reason, free from passion.
Aristotle

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

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.
Aristotle

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

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

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

The secret to humor is surprise.
Aristotle

The soul never thinks without a picture.
Aristotle

The state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle

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

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Aristotle

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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

He who hath many friends hath none.
Aristotle

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

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.
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

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

Hope is a waking dream.
Aristotle

Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Aristotle

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

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the
law.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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

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.
Aristotle

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

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
Aristotle

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.
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

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

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
Aristotle

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
Aristotle

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

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aristotle

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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

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.
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

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

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle

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

We make war that we may live in peace.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

Well begun is half done.
Aristotle

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

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

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.
Aristotle

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

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

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

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

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

Education is the best provision for old age.
Aristotle

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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.
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

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
Aristotle

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.
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

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.
Aristotle

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle

Friendship is essentially a partnership.
Aristotle

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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

A friend to all is a friend to none.
Aristotle

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

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.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason,
passion, desire.
Aristotle

All men by nature desire knowledge.
Aristotle

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Aristotle

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Aristotle

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.
Aristotle

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

Bad men are full of repentance.
Aristotle

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

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

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

Change in all things is sweet.
Aristotle

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

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.
Aristotle

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

Wit is educated insolence.
Aristotle

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

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
Aristotle

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

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.
Aristotle

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

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

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
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

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

Man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle

Man is naturally a political animal.
Aristotle

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

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
Aristotle

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of
life.
Aristotle

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
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

Most people would rather give than get affection.
Aristotle

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

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

Nature does nothing in vain.
Aristotle

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

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
Aristotle

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Aristotle

No one loves the man whom he fears.
Aristotle

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
Aristotle

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

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.
Aristotle

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

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
Aristotle

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

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Aristotle

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

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself,
power and glory, or happiness.
Aristotle

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotle

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

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
Aristotle

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

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.
Aristotle

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

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

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.
Aristotle

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