Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)
All action presupposes an end.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Discontents arise not merely from the inequality of possessions, but from the equality of honors. The multitude complain that property is unjustly, because unequally, distributed; men of superior merit or superior pretentions complain that honors are unjustly, if equally, distributed.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Now, of the various parts or faculties of the soul--whichever may be the proper term by which to designate them--the only ones with which we need now concern ourselves are those which belong to all such living things as possess not only life but animality. For, though an animal must necessarily be a living thing, living things are by no means of necessity animals; for plants live, and yet are without sensation, which is the distinctive characteristic of an animal. And the part in which is lodged that faculty of the soul in virtue of which a thing lives must also be the part in which is lodged that faculty in virtue of which we call it an animal.
ARISTOTLE
On Youth & Old Age, Life & Death
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
Abstract accuracy is no more to be expected in all philosophic treatises than in all products of art, and noble and just acts with which the art political is concerned admit of such great variation and of so many differences that they have been held to depend upon conventional rather than upon real distinctions.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Anyone, without any great penetration, may distinguish the dispositions consequent on wealth; for its possessors are insolent and overbearing, from being tainted in a certain way by the getting of their wealth. For they are affected as though they possessed every good; since wealth is a sort of standard of the worth of other things; whence every thing seems to be purchaseable by it.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Remember that time slurs over everything, let all deeds fade, blurs all writings and kills all memories. Exempt are only those which dig into the hearts of men by love.
ARISTOTLE
letter to Alexander on the policy toward the Cities
Among the various instruments subservient to the comfort of human life, there is this material distinction; that the work performed by one class, consists in production; and the work performed by another, is totally consumed in use.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
One may perhaps be led to suppose that it is virtue that is the end of the statesman's life. Yet even virtue itself would seem to fall short of being an absolute end.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
To learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Victory is the end of generalship.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics