Quotes by Aristotle

Shame is an ornament to the young a disgrace to the old.

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.

To amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously.

And further, observing that all this indeterminate substance is in motion, and that no true predication can be made of that which changes, they supposed that it is impossible to make any true statement about that which is in all ways and entirely changeable. For it was from this supposition that there blossomed forth the most extreme view of those which we have mentioned, that of the professed followers of Heraclitus, and such as Cratylus held, who ended by thinking that one need not say anything, and only moved his finger; and who criticized Heraclitus for saying that one cannot enter the same river twice, for he himself held that it cannot be done even once.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

We make war that we may live in peace.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

Man is by nature a political animal.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

Nature does nothing in vain.

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.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is natures way.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.

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.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.