Aristotle - Politics

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Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

Aristotle
The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

Aristotle
Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.

Aristotle
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

Aristotle
Let us then enunciate the functions of a state and we shall easily elicit what we want: First there must be food; secondly, arts, for life requires many instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against external assailants....

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
The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.

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

Aristotle
But that the unequal should be given to equals, and the unlike to those who are like, is contrary to nature, and nothing which is contrary to nature is good.

Aristotle
Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their working and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they have the same name.

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

Aristotle
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

Aristotle
One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Aristotle
They should rule who are able to rule best.

Aristotle
Men … are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause — the wickedness of human nature.

Aristotle
No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.

Aristotle
Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

Aristotle
The democrats think that as they are equal they ought to be equal in all things.

Aristotle
Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.

Aristotle
For example, justice is considered to mean equality, It does mean equality- but equality for those who are equal, and not for all.

Aristotle
The virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.

Aristotle
Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

Aristotle
Although it may be difficult in theory to know what is just and equal, the practical difficulty of inducing those to forbear who can, if they like, encroach, is far greater, for the weaker are always asking for equality and justice, but the stronger care for none of these things.

Aristotle
It is not easy for a person to do any great harm when his tenure of office is short, whereas long possession begets tyranny.

Aristotle
The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.

Aristotle
In the Laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements. The constitution proposed in the Laws has no element of monarchy at all; it is nothing but oligarchy and democracy, leaning rather to oligarchy.

Aristotle
When there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end.

Aristotle
The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy.

Aristotle
The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

Aristotle
Nature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.

Aristotle