1. Aristotle
(384 BC – 7 March 322 BC), Greek philosopher and scientist.
✦ He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
✦ Variant: I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his
enemies.
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Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
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Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and
is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.
▪
Variant: All human actions have one or more of these seven
causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion
and desire.
It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live
only for the gratification of it. (II.1267b4)
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2. Aristotle on Politics
✦ Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both,
is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in
their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate
share of external goods, than among those who possess
external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher
qualities. (VII.1323b1)
✦ The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls
and thirty-seven for men. (VII.1335a27
✦ The basis of a democratic state is liberty. (VI.1317a40)
✦ Well begun is half done. (V.1303b30) (quoting a proverb)
✦ The law is reason unaffected by desire. (III.1287a32)
✦ They should rule who are able to rule best. (II.1273b5)
✦ It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men
live only for the gratification of it. (II.1267b4)
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3. Aristotle on Metaphysics
✦ All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is
the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from
their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above
all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to
action, but even when we are not going to do anything,
we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is
that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and
brings to light many differences between things. (I.980a21)
▪
Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge...
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If, then, God is always in that good state in which we
sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better
this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And
life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is
life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent
actuality is life most good and eternal. (XII.1072b24)
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4. Aristotle on
Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC)
✦ If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own
sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then,
have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a
mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we
must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is. (I.1094a18)
✦ The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and
wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely
useful and for the sake of something else. (I.1096a5)
✦ Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. (I.1096a16)
✦ If ... we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this
to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle,
and the function of a good man to be the good and noble
performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is
performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence ... human
good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue,
and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best
and most complete. (I.1098a13)
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5. Aristotle on Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC) 2/
✦ One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so
too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and
happy. (I.1098a18)
✦ For some identify happiness with virtue, some with practical
wisdom, others with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with
these, or one of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without
pleasure; while others include also external prosperity. Now ... it is
not probable that these should be entirely mistaken, but rather that
they should be right in at least some one respect or even in most
respects. (I.1098b23)
✦ For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is
said to be a lover of is pleasant.... Now for most men their pleasures
are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature
pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that
are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such... Happiness
then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and
these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos: Most
noble is that which is justest, and best is health; but pleasantest is it
to win what we love. (I.1099a6)
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6. Aristotle on Poetics
✦ A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end. (1450b26)
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Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry
expresses the universal, and history only the particular. (1451b6)
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Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a
touch of madness in him. (1455a33)
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But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This
alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to
make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances. (1459a4)
▪
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
(1460a19)
▪
Variant: It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of
telling lies skillfully.
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For the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to
an unconvincing possibility. (1461b11Life in the true sense is
perceiving or thinking.
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious
of our own existence.
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7. Lives of Eminent Philosophers
by Diogenes Laërtius, quoting assertions attributed to Aristotle
✦
Education is the best provision for old age.
▪
Hope is a waking dream.
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I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being
commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
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Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
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To the query, "What is a friend?" his reply was "A single soul
dwelling in two bodies."
▪
Variants: Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
▪
To the query, in the same text, "what is love?" he replyed "What
is life without love? Love is like the sun, without light, there's no
life"
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8. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ A friend is a second self.
All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not
what is established.
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All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
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Bad men are full of repentance.
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Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
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Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them
only when your increased means permit.
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Change in all things is sweet.
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Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the
quality which guarantees the others.
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Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by
different means, and so make for themselves different modes
of life and forms of government.
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9. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving
them.
✦ Variants: Dignity does not come in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
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Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
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Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
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For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing
them.
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Friendship is essentially a partnership.
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Happiness depends upon ourselves.
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If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.
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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.
▪ In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The
young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in
their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
▪
In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show
their good qualities.
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10. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ In modern times there are opposing views about the practice of
education. There is no general agreement about what the young
should learn either in relation to virtue or in relation to the best life;
nor is it clear whether their education ought to be directed more
towards the intellect than towards the character of the soul.... And
it is not certain whether training should be directed at things useful
in life, or at those conducive to virtue, or at non-essentials.... And
there is no agreement as to what in fact does tend towards virtue.
Men do not all prize most highly the same virtue, so naturally they
differ also about the proper training for it.▪In the arena of human
life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good
qualities.
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It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor
drunken.
▪
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with
whose views we may agree, but also to those who have
expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed
something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
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11. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same
ideas make their appearance in the world.
▪
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it.
▪
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.
▪
Variant: Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become
just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by
doing brave acts.
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Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form
but with regard to their mode of life.
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Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more
certain they are their own.
▪
Variant: This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than
fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that
they are their own.
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12. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
▪ Variant: The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
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No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
▪ Variants: No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
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Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
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Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at
something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
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Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
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Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into
despotisms.
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It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled
habit of performing such actions.
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It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
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13. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities
with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through
greatness of mind.The aim of art is to represent not the outward
appearance of things, but their inward significance.
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The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
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The complete is more than the sum of its pieces.
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Variant: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from
the dead.
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The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather
than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the
punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
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Variant: Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
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The gods too are fond of a joke.
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The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
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The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace,
making the best of circumstances.
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14. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a
thousandfold.
▪
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.
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The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in
control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
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The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
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The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the
law.
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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
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The soul never thinks without a picture.
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The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of
contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
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The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
✦ ▪ With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have
and use it.
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15. Aristotle Unsourced
✦
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger,
since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is
willing, in great crises, to give even his life— knowing that under
certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
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The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
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Those who educate children well are more to be honored than
parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
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Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as
though it were thy last.
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To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather
an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.
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To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that
the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to
escape some ill.
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We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing
temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
✦
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16. Aristotle Unsourced
✦ ▪ 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.
▪
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd
rather have been talking.
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What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
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What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral
character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the
performance of virtuous actions.
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Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.
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Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow
ripening fruit.
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You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the
greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
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Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
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The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a
profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which
currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is
obviously their sordid avarice.
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The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance
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17. Aristotle Misattributed
✦ We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an
act, but a habit.
▪ Variant: We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not
an act, but a habit.
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do
not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but
we rather have these because we have acted rightly;
'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions';
we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an
act but a habit.
▪
"We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In
feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by
heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the
noblest, acts the best."
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18. Aristotle on Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC) 3/
✦ ▪ Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good
as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational
cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to
chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective
arrangement. (I.1099b22)
✦ ▪ For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing. (II.
1103a33)
✦ ▪ It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced,
and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one
would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do
these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will
become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen
attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do. (II.
1105b9)
✦ ▪ Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the
unlimited ... and good to that of the limited), 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); for these reasons also, then, excess and
defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue; For men are good in
but one way, but bad in many. (II.1106b28)
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19. Aristotle on Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC) 3/
✦ The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both
passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is
intermediate. (II.1107a4) Variant: Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient,
others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the
mean.
In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not
depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the
right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do
wrong. (II.1107a15)
Any one can get angry — that is easy — or give or spend money; but to do
this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right
motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy. (II.
1109a27)
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
(VIII.1155a5)
And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may
have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace. (X.1177b4)
Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our
own existence.
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