Aristotle Quotes About Liberalism

• Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

  Aristotle

  Inspiration, Parent, Politics

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.41, Cambridge University Press

• 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

• Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

  Aristotle

  Liberty, Beloved, Virtue

• Every effort therefore must be made to perpetuate prosperity. And, since that is to the advantage of the rich as well as the poor, all that accrues from the revenues should be collected into a single fund and distributed in block grants to those in need, if possible in lump sums large enough for the acquisition of a small piece of land, but if not, enough to start a business, or work in agriculture. And if that cannot be done for all, the distribution might be by tribes or some other division each in turn.

  Aristotle

  Block, Agriculture, Land

• Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or, at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned.

  Aristotle

  Wisdom, Men, Attention

  Aristotle,, Sir Ernest Barker, R. F. Stalley (2009). “The Politics”, p.42, Oxford University Press

• Now property is part of a household, and the acquisition of property part of household-management; for neither life itself nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities.

  Aristotle

  Wisdom, Good Life, Acquisition

• Tools may be animate as well as inanimate; for instance, a ship's captain uses a lifeless rudder, but a living man for watch; for a servant is, from the point of view of his craft, categorized as one of its tools. So any piece of property can be regarded as a tool enabling a man to live, and his property is an assemblage of such tools; a slave is a sort of living piece of property; and like any other servant is a tool in charge of other tools.

  Aristotle

  Men, Views, Watches

• And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: "sovereignty of the majority" and "liberty." "Just" is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants.

  Aristotle

  Running, Lying, Two

• We must speak first about the division of land and about those who cultivate it: who should they be and what kind of person? We do not agree with those who have said that property should be communally owned, but we do believe that there should be a friendly arrangement for its common use, and that none of the citizens should be without means of support.

  Aristotle

  Wisdom, Believe, Mean

• For suppose that every tool we had could perform its task, either at our bidding or itself perceiving the need, and if-like the statues made by Dædalus or the tripods of Hephæstus, of which the poet says that "self-moved they enter the assembly of the gods" - shuttles in a loom could fly to and fro and a plectrum play a lyre all self-moved, then master-craftsmen would have no need of servants nor masters of slaves.

  Aristotle

  Self, Play, Bidding

• Property should be in a general sense common, but as a general rule private... In well-ordered states, although every man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use of them.

  Aristotle

  Wisdom, Men, Use

You May Also Like:

Plato

Socrates

Democritus

Galileo Galilei

Alexander the Great

Thomas Aquinas

Rene Descartes