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Philosophical Quotations |
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Aristotle It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at the first began to philosophize. -- Aristotle, Metaphysics All men naturally desire knowledge. -- Aristotle, Metaphysics Man is a political animal. -- Aristotle, Politics The end of labor is to gain leisure. The aim of education is the wise use of leisure. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection [are] that a thing is your own and that it is your only one. -- Aristotle, Politics It is not enough to know about virtue but we must try to have and use it. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics We see that all men mean by justice that kind of state of character which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes them act justly and wish for what is just. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. -- Aristotle, Politics Law is order, and good law is good order. -- Aristotle, Politics A man is the origin of his action. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Man, when perfected, is the best of animals; but when isolated he is the worst of all; for injustice is more dangerous when armed, and man is equipped at birth with the weapons of intelligence, and with qualities of character which he may use for the vilest ends. Wherefore if he have not virtue he is the most unholy and savage of animals, full of gluttony and lust. -- Aristotle, Politics They should rule who are able to rule best. -- Aristotle, Politics The actuality of thought is life. -- Aristotle, Metaphysics 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, Nicomachean Ethics Misfortune shows those who are not really friends. -- Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. -- Aristotle, Parts of Animals Beauty is the gift of God. -- Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. -- Aristotle, Politics 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, Politics For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences. -- Aristotle, Rhetoric If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. -- Aristotle, Politics He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy, and is afraid of solitude. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics We must as second best…take the least of the evils. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Fame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise. -- Aristotle, Rhetoric Those who desire honour from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they delight in honour, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgement of those who speak about them. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. -- Aristotle, Rhetoric A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing posssibility. -- Aristotle, Poetics Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly ever of the public interest. -- Aristotle, Politics One thing alone not even God can do; To make undone whatever hath been done. -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. -- Aristotle, Poetics 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; he is no part of a state. -- Aristotle, Politics Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions. -- Aristotle, Politics It is characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, or just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living things who have this sense makes a family and a state. -- Aristotle, Politics Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them; for, if either party were manifestly superior, the other would not risk an attack. -- Aristotle, Politics 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, Politics It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it. -- Aristotle, Rhetoric Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view for some good, for men always act in order to obtain what they think good. But if all communities aim at some good, the state or political organization which is the highest of all and embraces all the others, aims, and in greater degree than any other does, at the highest good. -- Aristotle, Politics 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. -- From Politics A sense of wonder started men philosophizing, in ancient times as well as today. Their wondering is aroused, first, by trivial matters; but they continue on from there to wonder about less mundane matters such as the changes of the moon, sun, and stars, and the beginnings of the universe. What is the result of this wonderment, this puzzlement? An awesome feelings of ignorance. Men began to philosophize, therefore, to escape ignorance. -- From Metaphysics Man is by nature a social animal; and an unsocial person who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either unsatisfactory or superhuman...Society is a natural phenomenon and is prior to the individual...And any one who is unable to live a common life or who is self-sufficient that he has no need to do so is no member of Society, which means that he is either a beast or a god. The nature of man is not what he is born as, but what he is born for. Children and fools ask questions that no sensible man bothers to discuss. 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. In everything, as the saying goes, the first step is what counts. First beginnings are hardest to make and as small and inconspicuous as they are potent in influence, but once they are made, it is easy to add the rest. Life itself is not enough, even if it brings external happiness; only the good life, the life of a philosopher, is worth living. We should nowhere be more modest than in matters of religion. To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence. God and nature create nothing that does not fulfil a purpose. Education is the best provision for old age. Theoretical speculation must be based on facts gained by experience. It is by the practical experience of life and conduct that the truth is really tested. The nature of man is not what he is born as, but what he is born for. You may also be interested in |
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