Quotes by Aristotle

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.- Aristotle (Attributed by Seneca in Moral Essays, De Tranquillitate Animi On Tranquility of Mind, sct. 17, subsct. 10.)

That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.

Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

Criticism is something you can easily avoid — by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

All terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder—either no chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also worse which we cannot, or cannot easily, help. Speaking generally, anything causes us to feel fear that when it happens to, or threatens, others causes us to feel pity.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.

The beginning seems to be more than half of the whole.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbor to have them through envy.

Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, and we only care what opinion is held of us because of the people who form that opinion, it follows that the people before whom we feel shame are those whose opinion of us matters to us.

It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets tell us, charm the crowds ears more finely. Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in the dissimilar.

It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of the poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.

The Ideal age for marriage in men is 35. The Ideal age for marriage in women is 18

Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

They are fond of fun and therefore witty, wit being well-bred insolence.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace making the best of circumstances.