Famous Aristotle Quotations

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"Happiness depends upon ourselves."
by Aristotle
"Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved."
by Aristotle
"No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness."
by Aristotle
"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."
by Aristotle
"Hope is a waking dream."
by Aristotle
"Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope."
by Aristotle
"Well begun is half done."
by Aristotle
"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own."
by Aristotle
"Misfortune shows those who are not really friends."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
by Aristotle
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
by Aristotle
"Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends."
by Aristotle
"Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach."
by Aristotle
"There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."
by Aristotle
"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms."
by Aristotle
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
by Aristotle
"All men by nature desire knowledge."
by Aristotle
"A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one."
by Aristotle
"A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state."
by Aristotle
"The end of labor is to gain leisure."
by Aristotle
"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows."
by Aristotle Onassis
"The secret to humor is surprise."
by Aristotle
"The state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political animal."
by Aristotle
"The soul never thinks without a picture."
by Aristotle
"The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication."
by Aristotle
"The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."
by Aristotle
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
by Aristotle
"We make war that we may live in peace."
by Aristotle
"We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."
by Aristotle
"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."
by Aristotle
"Wit is educated insolence."
by Aristotle
"Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted."
by Bertrand Russell
"Bad men are full of repentance."
by Aristotle
"Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them."
by 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."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."
by Aristotle
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"Man is naturally a political animal."
by Aristotle
"Most people would rather give than get affection."
by Aristotle
"No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness."
by Aristotle
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
by Aristotle
"Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference."
by Aristotle
"Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind."
by Aristotle
"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."
by Aristotle
"Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular."
by Aristotle
"No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye."
by Aristotle
"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain."
by Aristotle
"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."
by Aristotle
"Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy."
by Aristotle
"Nature does nothing uselessly."
by Aristotle
"It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully."
by Aristotle
"It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom."
by Aristotle
"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."
by Aristotle
"Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age."
by 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."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last."
by Aristotle
"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."
by Aristotle
"Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."
by Aristotle
"...happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it..."
by Aristotle
"A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so."
by Aristotle
"A friend is a second self."
by Aristotle
"A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility."
by Aristotle
"A plausible impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility."
by 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."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"A true friend is one soul in two bodies."
by 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."
by Aristotle
"A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end."
by Aristotle
"After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts."
by Aristotle Onassis
"Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had."
by Aristotle
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."
by Aristotle
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire."
by Aristotle
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire."
by Aristotle
"All proofs rest on premises."
by Aristotle
"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."
by 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."
by 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"
by Aristotle
"Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not easy."
by Aristotle
"Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, That when they speak truth they are not believed."
by Laertius Diogenes
"Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons."
by Will Cuppy
"Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship."
by Mortimer Adler
"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths."
by Bertrand Russell
"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men although he was twice married, it never occured to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths."
by Bertrand Russell
"Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, 'I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.'"
by Johnson
"Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit."
by Aristotle
"Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids"
by Aristotle
"Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion."
by Aristotle
"Change in all things is sweet."
by Aristotle
"Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come."
by Aristotle
"Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence."
by Aristotle
"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others."
by 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."
by Aristotle


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