A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.”
Source: Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead
“Aristotle especially, both by speculation and observation... reached something like the modern idea of a succession of higher organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion of "a perfecting principle" in Nature. With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude view remained.”
Source: A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom: From Creation to the Victory of Scientific and Literary Methods
“Aristotle him selfe sayeth, that medicines be no meate to lyue withall.”
Source: English Works: Toxophilus. Report of the Affaires and State of Germany. The Scholemaster
“Aristotle is a plan maker for Earth. Use his teaching and you will be successful on Earth.”
Source: Enter Heaven
“Aristotle is a plan maker for society. Use his teaching and you will be successful on Earth.”
Source: Enter Heaven
“Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat.”
Source: History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition
“Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.”
“Aristotle maintains that the neck of the Lion is composed of a single bone. Aristotle knew nothing at all about Lions, a circumstance which did not prevent him from writing a good deal on the subject.”
“Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind.”
Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
“Aristotle Onassis rescued me at a moment when my life was engulfed with shadows. He brought me into a world where one could find both happiness and love. We lived through many beautiful experiences together which cannot be forgotten, and for which I will be eternally grateful.”
“Aristotle once said that wisdom (the ability to make good decisions) is a combination of experience plus reflection. The more time that you take to think about your experiences, the more vital lessons you will gain from them.”
“Aristotle raped reason. He implanted in the dominant schools of philosophy the attractive belief that there can be discrete separation between mind and body. This led quite naturally to corollary delusions such as the one that power can be understood without applying it, or that joy is totally removable from unhappiness, that peace can exist in the total absence of war, or that life can be understood without death.
—ERASMUS, Corrin Notes”
Source: The Butlerian Jihad
“Aristotle's account of the Katharsis of tragedy was a philosophic presentation of a truth that Homo religiosus had always understood intuitively: a symbolic, mythical or ritual presentation of events that would be unendurable in daily life can redeem and transform them into something pure and even pleasurable.”
Source: A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
“Aristotle's axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
Source: Peter's People and Their Marvelous Ideas
“Aristotle’s position on anger is that it is one of the most complex and distinctive of the human emotions, that it involves bodily, psychological, social, and moral dimensions, and that anger can and ought to be felt and acted upon in a number of right ways.”
“Aristotle's teaching on slavery was quoted implicitly and explicitly by the Fathers of the Church. It did not stop there. Through the collection of laws known as the Decree of Gratian (Bologna 1140), in entered into the official law book of the Church. St. Thomas Aquinas, the leading theologian of the Middle Ages, followed Aristotle. He agreed with all the pagan views, with just a dash of holy water. Slavery, he said, is 'natural' in the sense that it is the consequence of sin by a kind of 'second intention of nature'. He justified slavery in these circumstances: enslavement imposed as punishment; capture in conquest; people who sold themselves to pay off debts or who were sold by a court for that reason; children born of a slave mother.”
Source: The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
“Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we’ve basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time”
Source: Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
“Aristotle said that philosophy begins in wonder. I believe it also ends in wonder. The ultimate way in which we relate to the world as something sacred is by renewing our sense of wonder. That's why I'm so opposed to the kind of miracle-mongering we find in both new-age and old-age religion. We're attracted to pseudomiracles only because we've ceased to wonder at the world, at how amazing it is.”
“Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”
Source: Present Concerns
“Aristotle said time is a measure of change, and this movie is about changing in time, through time, while remaining the same person. That's a philosophical paradox and a moral dilemma. But 'Casablanca' says it's possible. You can have both. That's what it means. And that's my wish for you: that you would have both.”
“Aristotle said, Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Isn't that a three-way?”
“Aristotle said: "Evil brings men together."”
“Aristotle saw nature as intelligent and purposive, whereas for the Epicureans, and the 17th century 'mechanical' philosophers, there is no intentionality in nature except where there are animal minds and bodies.”
“Aristotle says that metaphor causes the mind to experience itself in the act of making a mistake.”
Source: Men in the Off Hours
“Aristotle taught that stars are made of a different matter than the four earthly elements— a quintessence— that also happens to be what the human psyche is made of. Which is why man’s spirit corresponds to the stars. Perhaps that’s not a very scientific view, but I do like the idea that there’s a little starlight in each of us.”
Source: Love in the Afternoon
“Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.”
Source: The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody
“Aristotle, the scholar from ancient times, supposedly said ‘Even gods cannot change the past.’ In which case, the gods are useless. People are different. The past piles up into the present. Some say the past gives us the world we know, or common knowledge, but I reject that view. […]”
Source: My Annihilation
“Aristotle thought that humans are rational animals and Hobbes thought that we act on the basis of rational self-interest. If only! It's not that we never do these things, it's that they are hardly constituative of who and what we are.”
“Aristotle turns out to be an extremely practical guide for those asking such personally profound questions, like: What should I do next to find meaning and fulfillment in the next stage of my life?. He offers timeless advice to business people who want to be successful both at work and in their private lives. For example, he shows how business leaders can create successful organizations and, at the same time, behave ethically. Come to think of it, the CEO of Wal-Mart should study Aristotle!”
“Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.”
“Aristotle was but a wreck of an Adam, and Athens but the rubbish of an Eden. How completely sin has defaced the divine image in man! That man has lost his righteousness and happiness is clearly evident as we look at the state of the world today!”
“Aristotle was by far a less able thinker than Plato ... he was completely overwhelmed by Plato.”
“Aristotle was convinced that a trained memory helped the development of logical thought processes.”
Source: Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits
“Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.”
“Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he - That when they speak truth they are not believed.”
“Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“Aristotle wore many rings and expensive clothes. ... Plato found this off-putting and unsuited for a philosopher.”
“Aristotle writes that persuasion is based on three things: the ethos, or personal character of the speaker; the pathos, or getting the audience into the right kind of emotional receptivity; and the logos, or the argument itself, carried out by abbreviated syllogisms, or something like deductive syllogisms, and by the use of example.”
Source: Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion - Second Edition
“Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily.”
Source: History of Western Philosophy
“Aristotle's opinion... that comets were nothing else than sublunary vapors or airy meteors... prevailed so far amongst the Greeks, that this sublimest part of astronomy lay altogether neglected; since none could think it worthwhile to observe, and to give an account of the wandering and uncertain paths of vapours floating in the Ether.”
“Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities. He says that children should be conceived in the Winter, when the wind is in the North, and that if people marry too young the children will be female. He tells us that the blood of females is blacker than that of males; that the pig is the only animal liable to measles; that an elephant suffering from insomnia should have its shoulders rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; that women have fewer teeth than men, and so on. Nevertheless, he is considered by the great majority of philosophers a paragon of wisdom.”
Source: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity
“Aristotle... a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.”
Source: New Atlantis and The Great Instauration
“Aristrocracy is like cheese. The older it is the higher it becomes.”
“Aristóteles pretende que ciertas pasiones se convierten en armas para el que sabe manejarlas. Verdadero sería esto, si, como las armas de la guerra, pudieran cogerse y dejarse a voluntad del que las usa. Pero esas armas, que Aristóteles da a la virtud, hieren por sí mismas, sin esperar el impulso de la mano; gobiernan y no son gobernadas. No necesitamos otros instrumentos; la naturaleza nos ha robustecido bastante con la razón. En ésta nos ha dado un arma fuerte, duradera, dócil, que no tiene dos filos y no puede volverse contra su dueño. La razón basta por sí misma, no
solamente para aconsejar, sino que también para obrar.”
Source: On Anger
“Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.”
“Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument.”
Source: Education: Ends and Means
“Arithmetic has began to totter.”
“Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.”
Source: Education: Ends and Means
“Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.”
Source: Carl Sandburg
“Arithmetic is the death of story.”
Source: The Writing Class