Top 1292 Quotes & Sayings by Aristotle - Page 2

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

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.

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

Nature does nothing in vain.

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

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

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

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

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.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

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

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects - things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language - either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

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.

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

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

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.

Man is by nature a political animal.

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

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.

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.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

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

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

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.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

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.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

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.

Most people would rather give than get affection.

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

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

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

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.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

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.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

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

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.