Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)
That which is a common concern is very generally neglected. The energies of man are excited by that which depends on himself alone, and of which he only is to reap the whole profit or glory.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Our statements will be adequate if made with as much clearness as the matter allows.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Happiness is a thing which calls for honor rather than for praise.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
For in man, and in man alone, owing to is erect attitude, the upper part of the body is turned toward the upper part of the universe; while in other animals it is turned neither to this nor to the lower aspects, but in a direction midway between the two.
ARISTOTLE
On Youth & Old Age, Life & Death
For the roots of plants are analogous to what is called the mouth in an animal, being the organ by which food is admitted.
ARISTOTLE
On Youth & Old Age, Life & Death
Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Be studious to preserve your reputation; if that be once lost, you are like a cancelled writing, of no value, and at best you do but survive your own funeral.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Bad men are full of repentance.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Nor does the argument about the contrary seem to be well urged. It does not follow, they say, because pain is an evil, that pleasure is a good; for the opposite to evil may be not a good, but some other evil, and both evil and good may stand opposed to something which is neither one nor the other.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Thus, then ... are the three differences which distinguish artistic imitation: the medium, the objects, and the manner.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Whoever, therefore, is unfit to live in a commonwealth, is above or below humanity.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
The majority of mankind would seem to be beguiled into error by pleasure, which, not being really a good, yet seems to be so. So that they indiscriminately choose as good whatsoever gives them pleasure, while they avoid all pain alike as evil.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
For the doubt is, whether it is possible for a man really to be wronged with his own consent, or not possible, but the act must always be done to him against his will, just as the doing a wrong must always be intentional; and again, whether the being wronged is wholly this way or that, (as the doing wrong is entirely a voluntary act,) or one kind of it is voluntary and another kind involuntary. And similarly in the case of being justly dealt with: for all just dealing is voluntary, so that it is reasonable there should be set opposite to both cases, (i.e. both the being wrongly and the being fairly treated,) the being so willingly or unwillingly. But it would seem a strange thing, in the case of being justly dealt with likewise, if it is wholly with one's consent; for some persons are justly dealt with without their consent.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
It may then be asked whether there is but one mode of impression for all the senses, seeing that taste and touch are acted upon by contact, and the other senses from a distance? But yet this is a seeming difference only, for we perceive the hard and the soft, as we do the odorous, the sonorous, and the visible, through media; with this difference, that the former impressions are made by objects close to, and the latter by objects at a distance from us. On which account, as we perceive all things through a medium, the medium, in the case of bodies close to us, escapes our attention; but if, as we have already said, we could be sensible of all tangible impressions through a membraneous substance, without our being conscious of their having been so transmitted, we should then be situated as we now are, when in water or air; for so situated, we seem to touch bodies directly, and to have no impression from them through a medium.
ARISTOTLE
On the Vital Principle
Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure. For the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Novices in the art attain to finish of diction and precision of portraiture before they can construct the plot.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics