Aristotle Quotes - Page 29

• We must not listen to those who advise us 'being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts' but must put on immortality as much as possible and strain every nerve to live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and honour surpasses all else.

  Aristotle

  Men, Thinking, Nerves

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• A state of the soul is either (1) an emotion, (2) a capacity, or (3) a disposition; virtue therefore must be one of these three things.

  Aristotle

  Soul, Three, Emotion

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.38, Wordsworth Editions

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• To the size of the state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals and implements, for none of these retain their facility when they are too large.

  Aristotle

  Animal, Government, Limits

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• Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions — what we do — that we are happy or the reverse.

  Aristotle

  Writing, Character, Giving

  "On the Art of Poetry".

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• The student of politics therefore as well as the psychologist must study the nature of the soul.

  Aristotle

  Soul, Students, Study

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.22, Wordsworth Editions

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• But nothing is yet clear on the subject of the intellect and the contemplative faculty. However, it seems to be another kind of soul, and this alone admits of being separated, as that which is eternal from that which is perishable, while it is clear from these remarks that the other parts of the soul are not separable, as some assert them to be, though it is obvious that they are conceptually distinct.

  Aristotle

  Soul, Kind, Faculty

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• 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).

  Aristotle

  Failure, Missing, Way

  Nichomachean Ethics (c. 330 b.c.).

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• A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.

  Aristotle

  Iron, Gold, Pieces

  Catholic Way Publishing, Aristotle, Plato (2015). “The Philosophy Collection [97 Books]”, p.1482, Catholic Way Publishing

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• The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

  Aristotle

  Real, Men, Differences

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.2031, Princeton University Press

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• Happiness, then, is co-extensive with contemplation, and the more people contemplate, the happier they are; not incidentally, but in virtue of their contemplation, because it is in itself precious. Thus happiness is a form of contemplation.

  Aristotle

  People, Ethics, Virtue

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• The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education

  Aristotle

  Errors, Feet, Community

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.250, Simon and Schuster

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• This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Action, Clear

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• 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.

  Aristotle

  Humor, Examination, Tests

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• What has soul in it differs from what has not, in that the former displays life. Now this word has more than one sense, and provided any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that thing is living. Living, that is, may mean thinking or perception or local movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth. Hence we think of plants also as living, for they are observed to possess in themselves an originative power through which they increase or decrease in all spatial directions.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Thinking, Soul

  Aristotle (2015). “The Aristotle Collection [50 Books]”, p.1083, Catholic Way Publishing

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• The argument of Alcidamas: Everyone honours the wise. Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, and honour him even to this day.

  Aristotle

  Wise, Men, Tongue

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.2228, Princeton University Press

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• A line is not made up of points. ... In the same way, time is not made up parts considered as indivisible 'nows.' Part of Aristotle's reply to Zeno's paradox concerning continuity.

  Aristotle

  Science, Lines, Way

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• ...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.

  Aristotle

  Men, Politics, Action

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• We, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion.

  Aristotle

  Science, Hands, Granted

  Aristotle (2016). “Pocket Aristotle”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

  Aristotle

  Responsibility, Bears, Injustice

  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

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• Nature does nothing in vain. Therefore, it is imperative for persons to act in accordance with their nature and develop their latent talents, in order to be content and complete.

  Aristotle

  Order, Doe, Talent

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• The continuum is that which is divisible into indivisibles that are infinitely divisible.

  Aristotle

  Continuum

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• Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

  Aristotle

  Thinking, Views, Order

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• 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

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• In part, art completes what nature cannot elaborate; and in part it imitates nature.

  Aristotle

  Art

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• Our virtues are voluntary (and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral dispositions, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a certain kind), it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary in the same manner as our virtues.

  Aristotle

  Character, Vices, Causes

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.65, Wordsworth Editions

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