Aristotle Quotes

548 Sourced Quotes

It will contribute towards one's object, who wishes to acquire a facility in the gaining of knowledge, to doubt judiciously.

Aristotle
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—and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning.... All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything; they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.

Aristotle
Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

Aristotle
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

Aristotle
In all things which have a plurality of parts, and which are not a total aggregate but a whole of some sort distinct from the parts, there is some cause.

Aristotle
We maintain, and have said in the Ethics, if the arguments there adduced are of any value, that happiness is the realization and perfect exercise of virtue, and this not conditional, but absolute. And I used the term 'conditional' to express that which is indispensable, and 'absolute' to express that which is good in itself.

Aristotle
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

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

Aristotle
The end of this science [ethics] is not knowledge but action.

Aristotle
It seems that ambition makes most people wish to be loved rather than to love others.

Aristotle
For any two portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the less, just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size.

Aristotle
In a word, everything that we choose we choose for the sake of something else—except happiness, which is an end.

Aristotle
The laws are, and ought to be, relative to the constitution, and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution is the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community. But laws are not to be confounded with the principles of the constitution; they are the rules according to which the magistrates should administer the state, and proceed against offenders.

Aristotle
Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth's] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.

Aristotle
Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.

Aristotle
Once more: there are three offices according to whose directions the highest magistrates are chosen in certain states - guardians of the law, probuli, councilors - of these, the guardians of the law are an aristocratical, the probuli an oligarchical, the council a democratical institution.

Aristotle
We will more easily accomplish what is proper if, like archers, we have a target in sight.

Aristotle
The good lawgiver should inquire how states and races of men and communities may participate in a good life, and in the happiness which is attainable by them.

Aristotle
Anger is always concerned with individuals,... whereas hatred is directed also against classes: we all hate any thief and any informer. Moreover, anger can be cured by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving pain to its object, the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his victim to feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not.

Aristotle
We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

Aristotle