Top 1292 Quotes & Sayings by Aristotle - Page 17

The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the few, or of the many, are perversions. For the members of a state, if they are truly citizens, ought to participate in its advantages.

Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.

Two characteristic marks have above all others been recognized as distinguishing that which has soul in it from that which has not - movement and sensation.

Those whose days are consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolties of fashion, unobservant of nature's lovelinessof demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.

Thus then a single harmony orders the composition of the whole...by the mingling of the most contrary principles.

...in this way the structure of the universe- I mean, of the heavens and the earth and the whole world- was arranged by one harmony through the blending of the most opposite principles.

The attainment of truth is then the function of both the intellectual parts of the soul. Therefore their respective virtues are those dispositions which will best qualify them to attain truth.

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

Young men have strong passions and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the bodily desires, it is the sexual by which they are most swayed and in which they show absence of control...They are changeable and fickle in their desires which are violent while they last, but quickly over: their impulses are keen but not deep rooted.

It is of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.

Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them.

Evidence from torture may be considered completely untrustworthy

Youth should stay away from all evil, especially things that produce wickedness and ill-will.

This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue

1 is not prime, by definition. 2 is an unnatural prime, 4 is an unnatural prime, and 6 is an unnatural prime. All other natural primes cannot be unnatural primes.

Either a beast or a god.

Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.

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.

In the works of Nature, purpose, not accident, is the main thing.

Art completes what nature cannot bring to finish. The artist gives us knowledge of nature's unrealized ends.

The majority of mankind would seem to be beguiled into error by pleasure, which, not being really a good, yet seems to be so. So that they indiscriminately choose as good whatsoever gives them pleasure, while they avoid all pain alike as evil.

Men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

A good style must have an air of novelty, at the same time concealing its art.

Tools may be animate as well as inanimate; for instance, a ship's captain uses a lifeless rudder, but a living man for watch; for a servant is, from the point of view of his craft, categorized as one of its tools. So any piece of property can be regarded as a tool enabling a man to live, and his property is an assemblage of such tools; a slave is a sort of living piece of property; and like any other servant is a tool in charge of other tools.

Special care should be taken of the health of the inhabitants, which will depend chiefly on the healthiness of the locality and of the quarter to which they are exposed, and secondly on the use of pure water; this latter point is by no means a secondary consideration. For the elements which we use the most and oftenest for the support of the body contribute most to health, and among those are water and air. Wherefore, in all wise states, if there is want of pure water, and the supply is not all equally good, the drinking water ought to be separated from that which is used for other purposes.

And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: "sovereignty of the majority" and "liberty." "Just" is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants.

People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just.

I say that habit's but a long practice, friend, and this becomes men's nature in the end.

...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.

For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.

It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.

The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god.

Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.

Now that practical skills have developed enough to provide adequately for material needs, one of these sciences which are not devoted to utilitarian ends [mathematics] has been able to arise in Egypt, the priestly caste there having the leisure necessary for disinterested research.

To leave the number of births unrestricted, as is done in most states, inevitably causes poverty among the citizens, and poverty produces crime and faction.

Inasmuch as every family is a part of a state, and these relationships are the parts of a family, and the virtue of the part must have regard to the virtue of the whole, women and children must be trained by education with an eye to the constitution, if the virtues of either of them are supposed to make any difference in the virtues of the state. And they must make a difference: for the children grow up to be citizens, and half the free persons in a state are women.

We have next to consider the formal definition of virtue.

Greed has no boundaries

Happiness is the highest good

So that the lover of myths, which are a compact of wonders, is by the same token a lover of wisdom.

When we look at the matter from another point of view, great caution would seem to be required. For the habit of lightly changing the laws is an evil, and, when the advantage is small, some errors both of lawgivers and rulers had better be left; the citizen will not gain so much by making the change as he will lose by the habit of disobedience.

Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law and without justice. If he finds himself an individual who cannot live in society, or who pretends he has need of only his own resources do not consider him as a member of humanity; he is a savage beast or a god.

No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise.

But nature flies from the infinite; for the infinite is imperfect, and nature always seeks an end.

The avarice of mankind is insatiable; at one time two obols was pay enough; but now, when this sum has become customary, men always want more and more without end.

The excellence of a thing is related to its proper function.

If the art of ship-building were in the wood, ships would exist by nature.

All are agreed that the various moral qualities are in a sense bestowed by nature: we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess the natural dispositions, yet without Intelligence these may manifestly be harmful.

Nature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.

Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be.

Now property is part of a household, and the acquisition of property part of household-management; for neither life itself nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities.

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

We must speak first about the division of land and about those who cultivate it: who should they be and what kind of person? We do not agree with those who have said that property should be communally owned, but we do believe that there should be a friendly arrangement for its common use, and that none of the citizens should be without means of support.

We must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils.

The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.

The virtues [moral excellence] therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive them, and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.

Rhetoric is useful because truth and justice are in their nature stronger than their opposites; so that if decisions be made, not in conformity to the rule of propriety, it must have been that they have been got the better of through fault of the advocates themselves: and this is deserving reprehension.

Selfishness doesn't consist in a love to yourself, but in a big degree of such love.