Aristotle Quotes

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was one of the greatest and most influential philosophers of all time, as well as an extremely important figure in the history of science, mathematics, and theater. A student of Plato, Aristotle guided Alexander the Great. Later, he formed his own high school (school) in Athens, where he developed important philosophical, scientific, and practical theories, many of which had great significance in the Middle Ages and are still influential today.

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Born: 384 BC in Stagira, Greece

Parents: Nichomachus (unknown mother)

Died: 322 BC in Chalcis, on the island of Euboea

Education: Plato’s Academy

Published writings: Over 200 writings, including Nichomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics and Previous Analyzes

Wife (s): Pythias, Herpyllis of Stagira (mistress with whom he had a son)

Children: Nicomachus

My favorite quote from Aristotle:Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

ARISTOTLE QUOTES

Here are the most famous Aristotle quotes and sayings on philosophy and life:

  • The law is the reason, free from passion.
  • The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
  • 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.
  • The end of labor is to gain leisure.
  • The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
  • 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.
  • The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
  • The gods too are fond of a joke.
  • The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
  • The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
  • The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
  • The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
  • The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
  • The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
  • The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
  • 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.
  • The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
  • The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
  • The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
  • Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
  • Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
  • Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
  • 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.
  • No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
  • Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
  • The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
  • Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
  • Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
  • Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
  • Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
  • Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.
  • Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
  • Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
  • What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
  • We make war that we may live in peace.
  • Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
  • 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.
  • The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
  • 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.
  • Well begun is half done.
  • We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Wit is educated insolence.
  • Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
  • You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
  • Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
  • Happiness depends upon ourselves.
  • No one loves the man whom he fears.
  • What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
  • There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
  • The soul never thinks without a picture.
  • The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
  • The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
  • The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
  • 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.
  • We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
  • The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

Check out my favorite writings by Aristotle:


 

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