Quotes By Aristotle

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

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

He who hath many friends hath none.

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.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Man is by nature a political animal.