Quotessence
Home / Authors / Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenVirtueIfsSoulStatesActionShouldPhilosophicalPeopleGovernmentMeanMayNicomachean EthicsWayLawFormInspirationalJusticeCharacterDoe

Famous Aristotle Quotes

“It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.”

MenGovernmentLawCitiesGood Man
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
Create image

“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
Create image

“If they do not share equally enjoyments and toils, those who labor much and get little will necessarily complain of those who labor little and receive or consume much. But indeed there is always a difficulty in men living together and having all human relations in common, but especially in their having common property.”

IfsMenHumansLittlesTogetherCommonShareLaborDifficultyRelationPropertyComplainingCommunismEnjoymentToilHuman RelationsLiving Together
Book:The Essential Aristotle
Create image

“Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when every one has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business.”

MenShouldCertainInterestCommonProgressPropertyComplainingCommunismOwn BusinessAttending
Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
Create image

“In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.”

PeopleMenShouldFirstsPoliticalConstitutionUselessRelyDevicesDeceivingRely UponSecond Place
Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens
Create image

“Every man should be responsible to others, nor should anyone be allowed to do just as he pleases; for where absolute freedom is allowed there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man. But the principle of responsibility secures that which is the greatest good in states; the right persons rule and are prevented from doing wrong, and the people have their due. It is evident that this is the best kind of democracy, and why? because the people are drawn from a certain class.”

PeopleMenShouldKindPersonsStatesCertainEvilResponsibilityClassPrinciplesDemocracyPleaseAbsolutesResponsibleDuesEvery ManInherentEvidentBeing ResponsibleRight PersonAbsolute Freedom
Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens
Create image

“Great and frequent reverses can crush and mar our bliss both by the pain they cause and by the hindrance they offer to many activities. Yet nevertheless even in adversity nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.”

MenSoulPainCausesGreatnessOffersActivityAdversityShiningEndureGenerosityBlissCrushMisfortunesReverseNeverthelessMarsSevereNobilityHindranceOwingInsensibility
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
Create image

“There are three things that are the motives of choice and three that are the motives of avoidance; namely, the noble, the expedient, and the pleasant, and their opposites, the base, the harmful, and the painful. Now in respect of all these the good man is likely to go right and the bad to go wrong, but especially in respect of pleasure; for pleasure is common to man with the lower animals, and also it is a concomitant of all the objects of choice, since both the noble and the expedient appear to us pleasant.”

MenChoicesThreePleasureAnimalCommonObjectsOppositesPainfulNobleMotivePleasantGood ManThree ThingsAvoidance
Author:Aristotle
Create image

“And inasmuch as the great-souled man deserves most, he must be the best of men; for the better a man is the more he deserves, and he that is best deserves most. Therefore the truly great-souled man must be a good man. Indeed greatness in each of the virtues would seem to go with greatness of soul.”

MenSoulSeemsVirtueGreatnessDeserveBeing The BestGood ManBest Of Me
Book:Eleven Common Characteristics of Great Souls
Create image

“If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.”

IfsMenTwoSoulWholeNaturalQualityMoralOpinionVirtueAcquireFacultyDispositionPrudenceClevernessForming Opinions
Author:Aristotle
Create image

“Therefore the good man ought to be a lover of self, since he will then both benefit himself by acting nobly and aid his fellows; but the bad man ought not to be a lover of self, since he will follow his base passions, and so injure both himself and his neighbors. With the bad man therefore, what he does is not in accord with what he ought to do, but the good man does what he ought, since intelligence always chooses for itself that which is best, and the good man obeys his intelligence.”

MenDoeSelfPassionActingOughtLoversBenefitsFellowsAidsNeighborGood ManAccordBad Man
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
Create image

“Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them - it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort - but actions which aim at honor and advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life.”

MenNeedsShouldMayStatesWould BeActionChoicesEvilIndividualPrinciplesPovertyCasesCreationHonorDiseaseSpringAdvantageAimFoundationPunishmentGood ManGood LifeChastisementConditionalLesser Evil
Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
Create image

“If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen - thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.”

IfsMenWellsStillsStatesGovernmentPerfectVirtueCitizensAssumingBe GoodExpectedGood ManOwn BusinessGood Citizen
Book:The Essential Aristotle
Create image

“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
Create image

“Neither should men study war with a view to the enslavement of those who do not deserve to be enslaved; but first of all they should provide against their own enslavement, and in the second place obtain empire for the good of the governed, and not for the sake of exercising a general despotism, and in the third place they should seek to be masters only over those who deserve to be slaves.”

MenShouldFirstsWarGovernmentViewsStudyMastersExerciseDeserveThirdsSlaveSakeEmpiresDespotismEnslavementBe A SlaveSecond PlaceThird Place
Book:The Essential Aristotle
Create image

“Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed.”

IfsMenWorldShouldHumansEndsSeemsHappinessGivenProcessResultsVirtueTrainingBlessedBest ThingsReasonableBeing The BestAppropriatePrizeInquiry
Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
Create image

“Most men appear to think that the art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of practicing towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, but where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such behavior is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice . .”

ThinkingMenArtGovernmentCareBornPartyCasesSacrificeSubjectsMankindHuman NatureOughtDemandBehaviorConcernedFellowsCommandAshamedIrrationalUnjustHuntsStatesmanshipCommand Not
Author:Aristotle
Create image

“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
Create image

“Those who merely possess the goods of fortune may be haughty and insolent; . . . they try to imitate the great-souled man without being really like him, and only copy him in what they can, reproducing his contempt for others but not his virtuous conduct. For the great-souled man is justified in despising other people - his estimates are correct; but most proud men have no good ground for their pride.”

PeopleMenTryingMayHuman NaturePrideProudFortuneGoodsCopiesContemptBeing RealVirtuousJustifiedHaughtyInsolentProud ManReproducing
Author:Aristotle
Create image

“All men, or most men, wish what is noble but choose what is profitable; and while it is noble to render a service not with an eye to receiving one in return, it is profitable to receive one. One ought therefore, if one can, to return the equivalent of services received, and to do so willingly; for one ought not to make a man one's friend if one is unwilling to return his favors.”

IfsMenEyeWishHuman NatureReturnOughtNobleFavorsReceivingProfitableUnwilling
Author:Aristotle
Create image

“Nor need it cause surprise that things disagreeable to the good man should seem pleasant to some men; for mankind is liable to many corruptions and diseases, and the things in question are not really pleasant, but only pleasant to these particular persons, who are in a condition to think them so.”

ThinkingMenNeedsShouldPersonsSeemsCausesConditionsMankindHuman NatureParticularDiseaseSurpriseCorruptionPleasantGood ManLiableDisagreeable
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
Create image

“Also our fellow competitors, who are indeed the people just mentioned - we do not compete with men who lived a hundred centuries ago, or those yet not born, or the dead, or those who dwell near the Pillars of Hercules, or those whom, in our opinion or that of others, we take to be far below us or far above us. So too we compete with those who follow the same ends as ourselves; we compete with our rivals in sport or in love, and generally with those who are after the same things; and it is therefore these whom we are bound to envy beyond all others. Hence the saying.”

PeopleMenEndsSportsBornOpinionCenturyHuman NatureHundredFellowsBoundsEnvyCompetitorsRivalsPillars
Author:Aristotle
Create image