Quotes by Aristotle

“Hope is a waking dream.”
-Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

“I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.”
-Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

“Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.”
-Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
-Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.” -Aristotle, In Stobaeus, Florilegium

“All men by nature desire knowledge.”
-Aristotle, Metaphysics

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“One swallow does not make a summer.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.” -Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“We make war that we may live in peace.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“We must as second best...take the least of the evils.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.” -Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

“In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.” -Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (4th c. BC)

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
-Aristotle, Parts of Animals

“Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.”
-Aristotle, Physics

“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.”
-Aristotle, Politics “

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.” -Aristotle, Politics

“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.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“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.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.” -Aristotle, Politics

“Law is order, and good law is good order.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“Man is by nature a political animal.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“Nature does nothing uselessly.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“The basis of a democratic state is liberty.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.”
-Aristotle, Politics

“A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.”
-Aristotle

“A friend is a second self.”
-Aristotle

“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.”
-Aristotle

“All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.”
-Aristotle

“All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.”
-Aristotle

“Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.” -Aristotle

“Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.”
-Aristotle

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
-Aristotle

“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

“It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.”
-Aristotle

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Aristotle

“It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.”
-Aristotle

“Law is mind without reason.”
-Aristotle

“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.”
-Aristotle

“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.”
-Aristotle

“One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”
-Aristotle

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
-Aristotle

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”
-Aristotle

“The gods too are fond of a joke.”
-Aristotle

“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
-Aristotle

“The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.”
-Aristotle

“To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.”
-Aristotle

“To perceive is to suffer.”
-Aristotle

“We are what we repeatedly do.”
-Aristotle

“Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.”
-Aristotle, 'Nicomachean Ethics'

“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
-Aristotle, 'Nicomachean Ethics,' 325 B.C.

“Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.”
-Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics

“Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.”
-Aristotle, Eudemos

“Education is the best provision for old age.”
-Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers