ARISTOTLE QUOTES
Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)
Time is not composed of indivisible nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles.
ARISTOTLE
Physics
To become an able man in any profession, there are three things necessary -- nature, study, and practice.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, Best Thoughts of Best Thinkers
It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Law is order, and good law is good order.
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
One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Wit is well-bred insolence.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
The man fit to command may be compared with the architect, who adjusts the plan and directs its execution. His skill must extend to every part of the work; that of his workmen is limited by their respective tasks.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
For the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
They should rule who are able to rule best.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
All nations believe the gods to be governed by a king; for men, who have made the gods after their own image, are ever hasty in ascribing to these celestial beings, human manners and human institutions.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
The brave man, if he be compared with the coward, seems foolhardy; and, if with the foolhardy man, seems a coward.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics