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Famous Aristotle Quotes

“There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.”

KnowsMenWayHumansMeanReasonCharacterAbleFormThreeNamesCausesEmotionClearHe ManGoodnessVariousExcitedCommandPersuasion
Book:The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle
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“Man is the metre of all things, the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms.”

MenMindHandsFormAll ThingsInstruments
Book:Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
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“That which most contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of education to the form of government, and yet in our own day this principle is universally neglected. The best laws, though sanctioned by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution.”

StatesGovernmentFormLawYoungSpiritPrinciplesHabitCitizensConstitutionAdaptationNeglectedForms Of GovernmentPermanence
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“The form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.”

GovernmentFormPoorNumbersDemocracyRichMajorityNobleForms Of GovernmentOligarchy
Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens
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“Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.”

PeopleMayGovernmentFormFallClassDemocracyMiddleDangerRevolutionAriseMiddle ClassImperfectQuarrelsRemarksForms Of GovernmentLiableOligarchyDissension
Book:On man in the universe: Metaphysics, Parts of animals, Ethics, Politics, Poetics
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“Error is multiform (for evil is a form of the unlimited, as in the old Pythagorean imagery, and good of the limited), whereas success is possible in one way only (which is why it is easy to fail and difficult to succeed - easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it); so this is another reason why excess and deficiency are a mark of vice, and observance of the mean a mark of virtue: Goodness is simple, badness is manifold.”

WayMeanReasonFormEvilEasyDifficultSimpleVirtueFailingMissingSucceedGoodnessMarkErrorsVicesOne WayReason WhyTargetExcessUnlimitedImageryDeficiencyBadnessObservanceManifold
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
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“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.”

MadeGovernmentFormLawDemocracyWorstElementsConstitutionTyrannyMonarchyOligarchy
Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens
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“The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the few, or of the many, are perversions. For the members of a state, if they are truly citizens, ought to participate in its advantages.”

IfsStatesGovernmentFormInterestViewsCommonOughtCitizensMembersAdvantageForms Of GovernmentPerversionCommon Interests
Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens
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“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.”

IfsWayWellsLittlesLongGovernmentFormThreeNamesVirtueDemocracyWorstKingsMereTyrannySuperiorityRoyalLong WayAristocracyTolerableOligarchyGreat Person
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.”

KindTwoGovernmentFormPoorCommonNumbersOpinionDemocracyRichAriseOligarchy
Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
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“There are still two forms besides democracy and oligarchy; one of them is universally recognized and included among the four principal forms of government, which are said to be (1) monarchy, (2) oligarchy, (3) democracy, and (4) the so-called aristocracy or government of the best. But there is also a fifth, which retains the generic name of polity or constitutional government.”

SaidStillsTwoGovernmentFormNamesDemocracyFourPrincipalFifthMonarchyAristocracyForms Of GovernmentOligarchyGenericConstitutional GovernmentGeneric Name
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“In the many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, although mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained. Democracy, for example, 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.”

MenGovernmentFormJusticeDemocracyFailingMankindExampleEqualClaimsNotionAriseForms Of GovernmentAcknowledgementSprungSprung Up
Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens
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“Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, . . Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.”

ThinkingShouldMeanMatterStatesGovernmentFormFoundLostForgetPartyPrinciplesPracticeVirtueDemocracySightExtremesRuinsForms Of GovernmentPresent Day
Book:Politics
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“Whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”

MenWayKindMeanLittlesDifferentStatesReasonGovernmentFormPerfectQualityPracticeVirtueHuman NatureHighestVariousRealizationReason WhyDifferent WaysForms Of GovernmentPerfect Practice
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws.”

IfsStatesGovernmentFormLawJusticeClearGoodnessConstitutionInjusticeUnjustVaryAdaptedForms Of GovernmentBadnessUnjust Laws
Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens
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“Now what is just and right is to be interpreted in the sense of 'what is equal'; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.”

DifferentStatesGovernmentAbleFormLawJusticeViewsCommonVirtueShareWillingCitizensEqualAdvantageGoverningForms Of GovernmentCommon GoodBeing Equal
Book:Politics
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“If then, as we say, good craftsmen look to the mean as they work, and if virtue, like nature, is more accurate and better than any form of art, it will follow that virtue has the quality of hitting the mean. I refer to moral virtue [not intellectual], for this is concerned with emotions and actions, in which one can have excess or deficiency or a due mean.”

IfsLooksMeanArtActionFormEmotionQualityMoralVirtueIntellectualConcernedDuesExcessAccurateHittingDeficiencyCraftsmanMoral VirtuesIf Then
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
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“If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassable, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.”

IfsThinkingMindDifferentSoulCharacterFormProcessObjectsCapableRelatedThoughtfulSensibleReceivingIdenticalThinkable
Book:On the Soul
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“Governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.”

StatesGovernmentFormInterestCommunityJusticeCommonPrinciplesRegardTyrantsRulersStrictDefectiveFreemanCommon Interests
Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens
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“The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.”

ShouldDoeCharacterGovernmentFormAttentionDemocracyYouthCitizensDirectConstitutionHarmSuitsPreservesNeglectPeculiarForms Of GovernmentLegislatorsOligarchy
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.”

IfsBeautifulFormOrderResultsDealsSpecialProveDegreesErrorsDefinitionsChiefsMathematicalAttributesSymmetryMathematical Beauty
Author:Aristotle
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“Salt water when it turns into vapour becomes sweet, and the vapour does not form salt water when it condenses again. This I know by experiment. The same thing is true in every case of the kind: wine and all fluids that evaporate and condense back into a liquid state become water. They all are water modified by a certain admixture, the nature of which determines their flavour.”

KnowsKindDoeStatesFormScienceCertainTurnsWaterCasesSweetSolutionsWineDetermineExperimentsSaltFluidLiquidFlavourVapourSalt Water
Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation
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“Now, the causes being four, it is the business of the student of nature to know about them all, and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will assign the "why" in the way proper to his science-the matter, the form, the mover, that for the sake of which.”

IfsKnowsWayMatterProblemFormScienceCausesFourStudentsResearchSake
Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation
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