Aristotle (Aristotle)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of the tyrant, spies and informers are the principal instruments. War is his favorite occupation, for the sake of engrossing the attention of the people, and making himself necessary to them as their leader.
-- 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 the government to the utmost.
-- 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

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

A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.
-- Aristotle

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
-- Aristotle

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

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 the government to the utmost.
-- Aristotle

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals revolt that they may be superior.
-- Aristotle

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
-- Aristotle

It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
-- Aristotle

Law is order, and good law is good order.
-- Aristotle

... Let us then enunciate the functions of a state and we shall easily elicit what we want: First there must be food; secondly, arts for life requires many instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against external assailants ...
-- Aristotle

Man is by nature a political animal.
-- Aristotle

Men . . . are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause
-- Aristotle

Nature does nothing uselessly.
-- Aristotle

That judges of important offices should hold office for life is not a good thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body.
-- Aristotle

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
-- Aristotle

They should rule who are able to rule best.
-- Aristotle

Well begun is half done.
-- Aristotle

Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.
-- Aristotle

All men by nature desire knowledge.
-- Aristotle

Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.
-- Aristotle

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
-- Aristotle

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
-- Aristotle

It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.
-- Aristotle

One swallow does not make a spring.
-- Aristotle

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
-- Aristotle

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.
-- Aristotle

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
-- Aristotle

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

The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.
-- Aristotle

Education is the best provision for old age.
-- Aristotle

Hope is a waking dream.
-- Aristotle

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

A friend is a second self.
-- Aristotle

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
-- 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, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
-- Aristotle

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
-- Aristotle

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
-- Aristotle

As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves disturbeth him not. He raiseth his head like a tower on a hill, and the arrows of fortune drop at his feet. In the instant of danger, the courage of his heart sustaineth him; and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.
-- 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

Between friends there is no need of justice.
-- 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

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

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.
-- Aristotle

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

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
-- Aristotle

For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.
-- Aristotle

Friendship is essentially a partnership.
-- Aristotle

Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.
-- Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
-- Aristotle

Happiness is a sort of action.
-- Aristotle

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
-- 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 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

In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.
-- Aristotle

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

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.
-- Aristotle

It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
-- 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 the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible.
-- Aristotle

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
-- Aristotle

Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.
-- Aristotle

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

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

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

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

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
-- Aristotle

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
-- Aristotle

Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty
-- Aristotle

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

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.
-- 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 appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
-- Aristotle

The complete is more than the sum of its pieces.
-- Aristotle

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
-- Aristotle

The end of labor is to gain leisure.
-- 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 good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
-- 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 more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire
-- 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 only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
-- 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 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 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
-- Aristotle

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

They [the young] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things
-- Aristotle

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave 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 give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.
-- Aristotle

To perceive is to suffer.
-- 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.
-- 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 live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
-- 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

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

Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.
-- Aristotle

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

Wit is educated insolence.
-- 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

The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.
-- Aristotle

Obstinate people may be subdivided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.

-- Aristotle

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
-- Aristotle