Aristotle Quotes About Constitution

• The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.

  Aristotle

  Character, Government, Democracy

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.389, Simon and Schuster

• The first essential responsibility of the state is control of the market-place: there must be some official charged with the duty of seeing that honest dealing and good order prevail. For one of the well-nigh essential activities of all states is the buying and selling of goods to meet their mutual basic needs; this is the quickest way to self-sufficiency, which seems to be what moves men to combine under a single constitution.

  Aristotle

  Wisdom, Moving, Responsibility

• A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

  Aristotle

  Philosophical, Constitution, States

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.69, Cambridge University Press

• 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.

  Aristotle

  Education, Children, Growing Up

  Aristotle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)”, p.2971, Delphi Classics

• The citizens begin by giving up some part of the constitution, and so with greater ease the government change something else which is a little more important, until they have undermined the whole fabric of the state.

  Aristotle

  Giving Up, Government, Important

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.334, Simon and Schuster

• It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

  Aristotle

  Justice, Political, Common

• In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.

  Aristotle

  Men, Rely Upon, People

  Aristotle, (2016). “Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens”, p.142, Princeton University Press

• In the Laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements. The constitution proposed in the Laws has no element of monarchy at all; it is nothing but oligarchy and democracy, leaning rather to oligarchy.

  Aristotle

  Law, Government, Democracy

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.42, Cambridge University Press

• There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices, - (1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government.

  Aristotle

  Loyalty, Government, Justice

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.338, Simon and Schuster

• The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

  Aristotle

  Numbers, Political, Democracy

• ...one Greek city state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged.

  Aristotle

  Law, Cities, Political

• All three states - the Lacedaemonian, the Cretan, and the Carthaginian - nearly resemble one another, and are very different from any others. Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remains loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.

  Aristotle

  Tyrants, People, Different

  Aristotle, (2016). “Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens”, p.53, Princeton University Press

• One citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.

  Aristotle

  Community, Citizens, Common

  Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.84, Aristotle

• 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.

  Aristotle

  Government, Law, Principles

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.339, Simon and Schuster

• A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state, especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government.

  Aristotle

  Government, Sovereign, Facts

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.69, Cambridge University Press

• When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name - a constitution.

  Aristotle

  Government, Names, Generic Name

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

• Any change of government which has to be introduced should be one which men, starting from their existing constitutions, will be both willing and able to adopt, since there is quite as much trouble in the reformation of an old constitution as in the establishment of a new one, just as to unlearn is as hard as to learn.

  Aristotle

  Men, Able, Constitution

  Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.123, Aristotle

• The laws are, and ought to be, relative to the constitution, and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution is the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community. But laws are not to be confounded with the principles of the constitution; they are the rules according to which the magistrates should administer the state, and proceed against offenders.

  Aristotle

  Law, Organization, Office

  Aristotle, Hugh Griffith (2009). “Aristotle”, p.273, Collector's Library

• The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws.

  Aristotle

  Government, Law, Justice

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.78, Cambridge University Press

• 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.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Happy Life, Cities

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.311, Simon and Schuster

• Hence both women and children must be educated with an eye to the constitution, if indeed it makes any difference to the virtue of a city-state that its children be virtuous, and its women too. And it must make a difference, since half the free population are women, and from children come those who participate in the constitution.

  Aristotle

  Children, Eye, Differences

• For legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.

  Aristotle

  Missing, Wish, Citizens

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.503, Simon and Schuster

• For those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not

  Aristotle

  Arms, Constitution, Position

• One kind of justice is that which is manifested in distributions of honour or money or the other things that fall to be divided among those who have a share in the constitution ... and another kind is that which plays a rectifying part in transactions.

  Aristotle

  Fall, Play, Justice

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.1784, Princeton University Press

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