QUOTATIONS FROM ARISTOTLE-5

1. The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
2. Memory is the scribe of the soul.
3. The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
4. "No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye."
5. "Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal."
6. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
7. "Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved."
8. The secret to humor is surprise.
9. Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
10. Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
11. The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."
12. "The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper."
13. The soul never thinks without a picture.
14. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
15. In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interest are at stake.
16. 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."
17. The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
18. The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection [Are] that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.
19. "The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain."
20. Most people would rather give than get affection.
21. 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.
22. The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.
23. "Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics."
24. "The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances."
25. Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard.
26. 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."
27. 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.
28. "To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do."
29. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
30. "Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods."
31. All men by nature desire knowledge.
32. For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.
33. All art is concerned with coming into being.
34. "If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence."
35. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

QUOTATIONS FROM ARISTOTLE-4

1. Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself -- Power and glory, or happiness."
2. Wit is educated insolence.
3. Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.
4. "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."
5. The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
6. All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.
7. "Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely."
8. "First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end."
9. It is better to rise from life as from a banquet -- neither thirsty nor drunken.
10. "What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."
11. Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids."
12. Happiness depends upon ourselves.
13. "For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve."
14. "It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions."
15. "Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age."
16. It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
17. Hope is the dream of a waking man.
18. Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.
19. It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible.
20. "Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them."
21. It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom."
22. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
23. "Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular."
24. "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions."
25. Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.

QUOTATIONS FROM ARISTOTLE-3

1. To the query, "What is a friend?" his reply was "A single soul dwelling in two bodies.""
2. "We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace."
3. No great genius is without an admixture of madness.
4. "Even when the laws have been written down, they ought not always remain unchanged."
5. That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
6. Beauty is the gift of God.
7. "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."
8. Hope is a waking dream.
9. It is possible to fail in many ways. . . while to succeed is possible only in one way.
10. "Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them."
11. Education is the best provision for old age.
12. "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."
13. A man is the origin of his action.
14. "Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit."
15. Between friends there is no need of justice.
16. Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead.
17. "The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival."
18. All that we do is done with an eye to something else.
19. A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
20. It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.
21. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
22. There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.
23. Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
24. "At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."
25. The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.

QUOTATIONS FROM ARISTOTLE-2

1. 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."
2. Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
3. "A good style must have an air of novelty, at the same time concealing its art."
4. No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.
5. All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
6. Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
7. Bad men are full of repentance.
8. "A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must . . . be appropriate."
9. "Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind."
10. "Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil - and if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty."
11. The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man's everyday wants.
12. It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize.
13. The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
14. "People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just."
15. In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
16. Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
17. Philosophy is the science which considers truth.
18. "Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth."
19. "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."
20. "Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses."
21. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
22. The end of labor is to gain leisure.
23. How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms?
24. "Art not only imitates nature, but also completes it deficiencies."
25. Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them.

QUOTATIONS FROM ARISTOTLE-1

1. The things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
2. It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
3. One swallow does not make a spring.
4. Well begun is half done.
5. "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."
6. Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach."
7. Man is by nature a political animal.
8. "Now a whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end."
9. "We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions."
10. "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."
11. What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing."
12. The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect; it is too exciting.
13. "The greatest thing is style. . . a mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances."
14. "Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all."
15. "The man who gets angry at the right things and with the right people, and in the right way and at the right time and for the right length of time, is commended."
16. The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication; for youth is sweet and they are growing.
17. The law is reason free from passion.
18. The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more . . .
19. "For as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions . . ."
20. "Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish."
21. Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once."
22. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
23. "Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite."
24. Law means good order.
25. "The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness."