Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
-Aristotle

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

All men by nature desire knowledge.
-Aristotle

Bad men are full of repentance.
-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

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

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

Hope is a waking dream.
-Aristotle

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

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

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

He who hath many friends hath none.
-Aristotle

A friend to all is a friend to none.
-Aristotle

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
-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

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

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

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

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

Education is the best provision for old age.
-Aristotle

Hope is the dream of a waking man.
-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

A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
-Aristotle

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

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

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
-Aristotle

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

Friendship is essentially a partnership.
-Aristotle

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

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 best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
-Aristotle

Change in all things is sweet.
-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

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

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

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

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

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
-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

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