We must as second best...take the least of the evils.
Aristotle Quotations
We found 119 matching quotations.
Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.
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.
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
To perceive is to suffer.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Well begun is half done.
Philosophy is the science which considers truth.
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.
In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.
Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.
What lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
All proofs rest on premises.
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
Law is mind without reason.
Evil draws men together.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
I count him braver who conquers his desires than him who conquers his enemies for the hardest victort is the victory over self.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows.
What is a friend A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.
it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
Education is the best provision for old age.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is slow-ripening fruit.
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Man is by nature a political animal.
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
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.
I have gained this by philosophy that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
Happiness is a state of activity.
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.
The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
The gods too are fond of a joke
Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.
Hope is a waking dream.
A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.
It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.
Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
To love someone is to identify with them.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way...you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids
What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
The gods too are fond of a joke.
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.
All men by nature desire knowledge.
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
Wit is educated insolence.
To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.
They should rule who are able to rule best.
The Pythagorean ... having been brought up in the study of mathematics, thought that things are numbers ... and that the whole cosmos is a scale and a number.
To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.
A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
We make war that we may live in peace.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
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.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
Time crumbles things everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
A friend is a second self.
In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.
Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
We are what we repeatedly do.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
One swallow does not make a summer.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Law is order, and good law is good order.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Nature does nothing uselessly.
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.
Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
Change in all things is sweet.
I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.