Aristotle Quotations | Page 5

Plants, again, inasmuch as they are without locomotion, present no great variety in their heterogeneous pacts. For, when the functions are but few, few also are the organs required to effect them. ... Animals, however, that not only live but perceive, present a great multiformity of pacts, and this diversity is greater in some animals than in others, being most varied in those to whose share has fallen not mere life but life of high degree. Now such an animal is man.

Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?

Shipping magnate of the 20th century If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.

Those who are not angry at the things they should be angry at are thought to be fools, and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right persons.

Art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning.

Either a beast or a god.

One thing alone not even God can do,To make undone whatever hath been done.

Female cats are very Lascivious, and make advances to the male.

A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end.

The beginning, as the proverb says, is half the whole.

In educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain

Tragedy is an imitation not of men but of a life, an action

The specific excellence of verbal expression in poetry is to be clear without being low.

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy,

You are what you do repeatedly,

We are what we do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.

The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.

Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.

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

Greed has no boundaries

When their adventures do not succeed, however, they run away; but it was the mark of a brave man to face things that are, and seem, terrible for a man, because it is noble to do so and disgraceful not to do so.

The Life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well.

Marriage is like retiring as a bachelor and getting a sexual pension. You don't have to work for the sex any more, but you only get 65% as much.

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement.

A good character carries with it the highest power of causing a thing to be believed.

It is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil.

Love is the cause of unity in all things.

Life cannot be lived, and understood, simultaneously.

The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it is.

For the real difference between humans and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state.

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.

Phronimos, possessing practical wisdom . But the only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom; all the others must be possessed, so it seems, both by rulers and ruled. The virtue of a person being ruled is not practical wisdom but correct opinion; he is rather like a person who makes the pipes, while the ruler is the one who can play them.

It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.

But it is not at all certain that this superiority of the many over the sound few is possible in the case of every people and every large number. There are some whom it would be impossible: otherwise the theory would apply to wild animals- and yet some men are hardly any better than wild animals.

To let them share in the highest offices is to take a risk; inevitably, their unjust standards will cause them to commit injustice, and their lack of judgement will lead them into error. On the other hand there is a risk in not giving them a share, and in their non participation, for when there are many who have no property and no honours they inevitably constitute a huge hostile element in the state. But it can still remain open to them to participate in deliberating and judging.

Perhaps here we have a clue to the reason why royal rule used to exist formerly, namely the difficulty of finding enough men of outstanding virtue ..

. .we would have to say that hereditary succession is harmful. You may say the king, having sovereign power, will not in that case hand over to his children. But it is hard to believe that: it is a difficult achievement, which expects too much virtue of human nature.

.. for desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition.

The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

Metaphysics is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which it has.

The Eyes are the organs of temptation, and the Ears are the organs of instruction.

If you prove the cause, you at once prove the effect; and conversely nothing can exist without its cause.

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine ACTIONS than in the non-performance of base ones.

Experience has shown that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a populous state to be run by good laws.

Such an event is probable in Agathon's sense of the word: 'it is probable,' he says, 'that many things should happen contrary to probability.'

If the consequences are the same it is always better to assume the more limited antecedent, since in things of nature the limited, as being better, is sure to be found, wherever possible, rather than the unlimited.

Just as at the Olympic games it is not the handsomest or strongest men who are crowned with victory but the successful competitors, so in life it is those who act rightly who carry off all the prizes and rewards.

Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire.

In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interest are at stake.

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.

Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble: for instance those who have made money love money more than those who have inherited it.

Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it; People become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarily, we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.

Our youth should also be educated with music and physical education.

If men are given food, but no chastisement nor any work, they become insolent.

Memory is therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember.

Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all other advantages.

Time is the measurable unit of movement concerning a before and an after.

You'll understand what life is if you think about the act of dying. When I die, how will I be different from the way I am right now? In the first moments after death, my body will be scarcely different in physical terms than it was in the last seconds of life, but I will no longer move, no longer sense, nor speak, nor feel, nor care. It's these things that are life. At that moment, the psyche takes flight in the last breath.

Aristotle suggests that the rotating Earth was a generally accepted tenet of Pythagorism: "While most of those who hold that the whole heaven is finite say that the earth lies at the center, the philosophers of Italy, the so-called Pythagoreans, assert the contrary. They say that in the middle there is fire, and that the earth is one of the stars, and by its circular motion round the center produces night and day."

It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge?

...The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest.

... There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity.

Demonstration is also something necessary, because a demonstration cannot go otherwise than it does, ... And the cause of this lies with the primary premises/principles.

... a science must deal with a subject and its properties.

... the science we are after is not about mathematicals either none of them, you see, is separable.

But also philosophy is not about perceptible substances they, you see, are prone to destruction.

Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.

The final cause, then, produces motion through being loved.

Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it.

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each (inanimate) instrument could do its own work.

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

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

He overcomes a stout enemy who overcomes his own anger.

There are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.

To appreciate the beauty of a snow flake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.

The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man's everyday wants.

That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it

The man who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god.

If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it... then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.

Virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.

The heart is the perfection of the whole organism. Therefore the principles of the power of perception and the souls ability to nourish itself must lie in the heart.

Not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.

A person's life persuades better than his word.

It is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness which the nature of the particular subject admits. It is equally unreasonable to accept merely probable conclusions from a mathematician and to demand strict demonstration from an orator.

Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.

That which is impossible and probable is better than that which is possible and improbable.

Happiness is the reward of virtue.

We are what we continually do...

Since music has so much to do with the molding of character, it is necessary that we teach it to our children.

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

All that one gains by falsehood is, not to be believed when he speaks the truth.

For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of the Poet; while the other should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet.

It is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.

Evils draw men together.