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Quotes by Aristotle


Hope is the dream of a waking man.
– Aristotle

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
– 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.
– Aristotle

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over 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 men by nature desire to know.
– Aristotle
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
– Aristotle
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
– 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
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
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
– 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
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 consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
– Aristotle
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
– Aristotle
Education is the best provision for old age.
– Aristotle
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
– 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
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 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
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
– 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 unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
– Aristotle
Man is by nature a political animal.
– Aristotle
Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
– 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.
– Aristotle
Most people would rather give than get affection.
– Aristotle
Nature does nothing uselessly.
– Aristotle
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
– Aristotle
No great genius has ever existed without some touch 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
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
– Aristotle
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
– Aristotle
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
– 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
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
– Aristotle
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
– Aristotle
Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty - excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beauty, or at any rate understandable -should persist after the beauty was gone.
– 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 best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
– 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 gods too are fond of a joke.
– 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- the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale - and that alone can guide.
– 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 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 - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
– Aristotle
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
– Aristotle
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
– Aristotle
This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.
– Aristotle
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them 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 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
Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude... by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions.
– 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 make war that we may live in peace.
– 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
Well begun is half done.
– Aristotle
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
– 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
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
– Aristotle
Wit is educated insolence.
– Aristotle
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
– 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