TIMELY WISDOM

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Quotes: Aristotle



A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.
-  Aristotle

A friend is a second self.   
  -  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

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
-  Aristotle
 
Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.
- Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
 - Aristotle

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.
 --  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 some animals are good at hunting and others are suitable for hunting, then the Gods must clearly smile on hunting.
- Aristotle
   
It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
 - Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle

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

Law is mind without reason.
- Aristotle


Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives
without law, and without justice.
- Aristotle

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way... you become just by
performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
- Aristotle

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.
- Aristotle


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

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
- Aristotle


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

The gods too are fond of a joke.
- 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 only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
- 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

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


Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.
- Aristotle, 'Nicomachean Ethics'

 
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
- Aristotle, 'Nicomachean Ethics,' 325 B.C.


Evil brings men together.
- Aristotle


Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
- Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics


Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.
- Aristotle, Eudemos


Education is the best provision for old age.
-  Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
   
Hope is a waking dream.
 - Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
 
I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
-  Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers


Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
- Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers


What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
 -   Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers



I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.
- Aristotle, In Stobaeus, Florilegium
 

All men by nature desire knowledge.
  -  Aristotle, Metaphysics



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


It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.
    Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
  
One swallow does not make a summer.
- Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics


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


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

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


We make war that we may live in peace.
- Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
  

We must as second best...take the least of the evils.
  -  Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
   

With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
-  Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics


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

In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (4th c. BC)


In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
- Aristotle, Parts of Animals
 

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
- Aristotle, Physics


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, Politics


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

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


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, Politics
   

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, Politics
  

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


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


Man is by nature a political animal.
-  Aristotle, Politics
 

Nature does nothing uselessly.
-  Aristotle, Politics


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

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
-  Aristotle, Politics
 

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


Well begun is half done.
 - Aristotle, Politics (quoting a proverb)


When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.
-   Aristotle, Politics, book 1, chapter 2


A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
 -Aristotle, Rhetoric

A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end.
-  Aristotle, Rhetoric
Evil draws men together.
- Aristotle, Rhetoric
 

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
- Aristotle, Rhetoric 





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