Aristotle - Politics

106 Sourced Quotes

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He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin... will obtain the clearest view of them.

Aristotle
When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name - a constitution.

Aristotle
The rattle is a toy suited to the infant mind, and education is a rattle or toy for children of larger growth.

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
In most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all.

Aristotle
In framing an ideal we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.

Aristotle
It is evident, then, that there is a sort of education in which parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary, but because it is liberal or noble.

Aristotle
Most persons think that a state in order to be happy ought to be large; but even if they are right, they have no idea of what is a large and what a small state.... To the size of states there is a limit, as there is to other things, plants, animals, implements; for none of these retain their natural power when they are too large or too small, but they either wholly lose their nature, or are spoiled.

Aristotle
Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.

Aristotle
It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized.

Aristotle
All three states - the Lacedaemonian, the Cretan, and the Carthaginian - nearly resemble one another, and are very different from any others. Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remains loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.

Aristotle
Of old, the demagogue was also a general, and then democracies changed into tyrannies. Most of the ancient tyrants were originally demagogues. They are not so now, but they were then; and the reason is that they were generals and not orators, for oratory had not yet come into fashion.

Aristotle
Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily.

Aristotle
A rose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye.

Aristotle
A rose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye.

Aristotle
It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle