ARISTOTLE QUOTES IV
Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)
The wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
In the work of government, reason is the architect; it is the part of reason to command, and the duty of weakness and of passion to obey.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Superiority in war ... cannot surely be a proof of justice, since wars are often unjustly undertaken, and successfully, though wickedly, carried on and concluded.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Perfected by the offices and duties of social life, man is the best, but, rude and undisciplined, he is the very worst of animals.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
As a drop of honey is dissipated and lost in a pail of water, so the sweet affection of love would totally vanish through too extensive a diffusion.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
In the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
It is found by experience, that those instruments are the most perfect, which are each of them contrived for its specific use.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Without action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
The equalization of fortunes may have some slight tendency to stifle animosity and to prevent dissension. But its effect is always inconsiderable, and often doubtful; since those who think themselves entitled to superiority will not patiently brook equality.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Probable impossibilities are always to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Magistrates rule by an established rotation; kings reign for life.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Evils draw men together.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
A participation in rights and advantages forms the bond of political society; an institution prior, in the intention of nature, to the families and individuals from whom it is constituted.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Now each man can give a good judgment upon matters with which he is acquainted, and is in such cases a good judge. In each particular case, therefore, he judges best who has been taught the matter in question, and on all matters he whose education has been universal.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics