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Quote by Aristotle

“If what was said in the Ethics is true, that the happy life is the life according to virtue lived without impediment, and that virtue is a mean, then the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best. And the same principles of virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of constitutions; for the constitution is in a figure the life of the city.”

Quote by Aristotle

Book:The Essential Aristotle
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The Essential Aristotle

This compilation brings together essential writings of Aristotle, offering readers a concise yet profound understanding of his intellectual legacy. It includes extracts from his major treatises, providing a glimpse into his logical reasoning, empirical observations, and philosophical theories that have influenced Western thought for centuries. more

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Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle, a renowned Greek philosopher, is one of the founders of Western philosophy. His thoughts covered a wide range of fields, including ethics, logic, politics, and had a profound impact on the world. more

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Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens
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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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Book:On man in the universe: Metaphysics, Parts of animals, Ethics, Politics, Poetics
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“There is an error common to both oligarchies and to democracies: in the latter the demagogues, when the multitude are above the law, are always cutting the city in two by quarrels with the rich, whereas they should always profess to be maintaining their cause; just as in oligarchies the oligarchs should profess to maintain the cause of the people, . .”

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Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
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“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.”

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“Inasmuch as every family is a part of a state, and these relationships are the parts of a family, and the virtue of the part must have regard to the virtue of the whole, women and children must be trained by education with an eye to the constitution, if the virtues of either of them are supposed to make any difference in the virtues of the state. And they must make a difference: for the children grow up to be citizens, and half the free persons in a state are women.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)
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