ARISTOTLE QUOTES VIII

Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)

A family, to be complete, must consist of freemen and slaves; and as every complex object naturally resolves itself into simple elements, we must consider the elements of a family--the master and servant, the husband and wife, the father and children; what all of these are in themselves, and what are the relations which they naturally and properly bear to each other.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: family


Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: happiness


The law is reason unaffected by desire.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: law


The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.

ARISTOTLE

Metaphysics

Tags: truth


The necessity of perpetuating the species, forms the combining principle between males and females; a principle independent of choice or design, and alike incident to animals and to plants, which are all naturally impelled to propagate their respective kinds.

ARISTOTLE

Politics


But the merchant, if faithful to his principles, always employs his money reluctantly for any other purpose than that of augmenting itself.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: money


Money ... is founded merely on convention; its currency and value depending on the mutable wills of men.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: money


Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

ARISTOTLE

Poetics


It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speach and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

ARISTOTLE

Rhetoric


Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: revolution


Neglect of an effective birth control policy is a never-failing source of poverty which, in turn, is the parent of revolution and crime.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: birth control


The advantageous situation of the capital and of the territory is necessarily a part of the common stock; and all men who inhabit the same city and country must breathe the same air, and enjoy the same climate.

ARISTOTLE

Politics


If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point of diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.

ARISTOTLE

Poetics

Tags: playwriting


Concerning things which exist or will exist inevitably, or which cannot possibly exist or take place, no counsel can be given.

ARISTOTLE

Rhetoric


Wicked men obey for fear, but the good for love.

ARISTOTLE

attributed, Day's Collacon


Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.

ARISTOTLE

Rhetoric


For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.

ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics

Tags: pleasure


Nature flies from the infinite, for the infinite is unending or imperfect, and Nature ever seeks to amend.

ARISTOTLE

On the Generation of Animals

Tags: nature


We are masters of our actions from the beginning up to the very end. But, in the case of our habits, we are only masters of their commencement--each particular little increase being as imperceptible as in the case of bodily infirmities. But yet our habits are voluntary, in that it was once in our power to adopt or not to adopt such or such a course of conduct.

ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics

Tags: habit


It is easy to have some knowledge about honey, wine, and hellebore, of cautery and the use of the knife; but how they should be applied for restoring health, to whom and when, is no less a matter than to be a physician.

ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics

Tags: knowledge