SaturdayFeb 07, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.
Well begun is half done.
We must as second best...take the least of the evils.
You become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
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.
Evil draws men together.
A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end.
A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave.... The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities a natural defectiveness.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
The purpose of the present study is not as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of knowledge, we are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, else there would be no advantage in studying it. For that reason, it becomes necessary to examine the problem of our actions and to ask how they are to be performed. For as we have said, the actions determine what kind of characteristics are developed.
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
The quality of life is determined by its activities.
If purpose, then, is inherent in art, so is it in Nature also. The best illustration is the case of a man being his own physician, for Nature is like that agent and patient at once.
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or pity one might as well warp a carpenter's rule before using it.
The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.
We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace.
We cannot learn without pain.
If there is some end of the things we do ... will not knowledge of it, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
Happiness is a state of activity.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
In educating the young we use pleasure and pain as rudders to steer their course.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us.
How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms?
Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
[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 a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
Actions determine what kind of characteristics are developed.
A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange.... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.
Democracy [is] when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
We make war that we might live in peace.
While both [Plato and truth] are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
It is possible to fail in many ways ... while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult).
Time crumbles things; everything older under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
The actuality of thought is life.
The evolution of species was the subject of conjecture long before Darwin's day. Here Aristotle attributes to Empedocles an evolutionary doctrine strikingly reminiscent of natural selection: 'Empedocles says that the greater part of the members of animals
The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect; it is too exciting.
That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
One swallow does not make a summer?
... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.
They should rule who are able to rule best.
Most people would rather give than get affection.
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they my be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.
Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.
In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
All proofs rest on premises.
For we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles, and have carried our analysis as far as its simplest elements.
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Philosophy is the science which considers truth.
A man is the origin of his action.
It is more difficult to organize peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not well organized.
To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.
The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
Nature does nothing uselessly.
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
The soul never thinks without a mental picture.
The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.
Now that practical skills have developed enough to provide adequately for material needs, one of these sciences which are not devoted to utilitarian ends [mathematics] has been able to arise in Egypt, the priestly caste there having the leisure necessary for disinterested research.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. Found in Platos writings and quoted by Seneca.
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.
Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Law is order, and good law is good order.
The end of labor is to gain leisure.
All men by nature desire knowledge.
We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
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.
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
We must as second best ... take the least of the evils.
Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.
To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.
To the query, 'What is a friend?' his reply was 'A single soul dwelling in two bodies.'
To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.
There are three classes of men--lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain.
The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication; for youth is sweet and they are growing.
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection [are] that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.
The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.
The secret to humor is surprise.
The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
The man who gets angry at the right things and with the right people, and in the right way and at the right time and for the right length of time, is commended.
The law is reason free from passion.
The greatest thing is style... a mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
The final cause, then, produces motion through being loved.
The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man's everyday wants.
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself Power and glory, or happiness.
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.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just.
Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.
Now a whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
No great genius is without an admixture of madness.
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil - and if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty.
Memory is the scribe of the soul.
Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.
Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.
Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.
Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.
Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire.
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body, but knowledge acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Between friends there is no need of justice.
Bad men are full of repentance.
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Art not only imitates nature, but also completes it deficiencies.
And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the mother of invention.
Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them.
All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.
All that we do is done with an eye to something else.
A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself ... with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must ... be appropriate.
A good style must have an air of novelty, at the same time concealing its art.
Hope is a waking dream.
If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.
... 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....
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
What soon grows old? Gratitude.
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
Every science and every inquiry, and similarly every activity and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good.
Education is the best provision for old age.
Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead.
It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.
Aristotle suggests that the rotating Earth was a generally accepted tenet of Pythagorism: 'While most of those who hold that the whole heaven is finite say that the earth lies at the center, the philosophers of Italy, the so-called Pythagoreans, assert the contrary. They say that in the middle there is fire, and that the earth is one of the stars, and by its circular motion round the center produces night and day.'
It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.
Dissimilarity of habit tends more than anything to destroy affection.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.
Aristotle's geographical speculations anticipated by almost two thousand years the rationale behind Columbus' voyage. Ferdinand Columbus suggested that his father was familiar with the following passage: 'Again, our observations of the stars make it evide
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids
To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
Change in all things is sweet.
The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
Beauty is the gift of God.
Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once, and so there will be no unity and completeness.
He overcomes a stout enemy who overcomes his own anger.
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.
Anything that we have to learn we learn by the actual doing of it.... We become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of the circumstances.
It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize.
It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
It is of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.
It is better to rise from life as from a banquet -- neither thirsty nor drunken.
It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal; equals revolt in order that they may be superior.
In short, the habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference.
In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interests are at stake.
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.
For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.
For as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions ...
First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.
The gods, too, are fond of a joke.
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.
What is justice? To give every man his own.
Piety required us to honour truth above our friends.
The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.
The law is reason from passion.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
The vigorous are no better than the lazy during one half of life, for all men are alike when asleep.
There are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.
There is a foolish corner even in the brain of the sage.
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.
Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
The good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
To enjoy the things we ought, and to hate the things we ought, has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
The poet's function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but the kind of thing that might happen, i.e. what is possible as being probable or necessary.
A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything.
All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, And in the right way - that is not easy.
Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.
Shame is an ornament to the young; A disgrace to the old.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
Friendship is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
He who hath many friends, hath none.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
Law is a form of order, and good law must necessarily mean good order.
No one loves the man whom he fears.
Patience is so like fortitude, that she seems either her sister or her daughter.
Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
The gods too are fond of a joke.
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Wit is educated insolence.
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