Aristotle: Trending quotes (page 10)

“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book V, 1311a.11
Politics

People

“The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book III, 1276b.34
Politics

“But voice is a certain sound of that which is animated; for nothing inanimate emits a voice; but they are said to emit a voice from similitude, as a pipe, and a lyre, and such other inanimate things, have extension, modulation, and dialect; for thus it appears, because voice, also, has these.”

Aristotle book On the Soul

Book II: On the soul; In: Aristotle (1808). Works, Vol. 4. p. 63 (412a-424b)
De Anima

Appearance , Animals

“Change in all things is sweet.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book VII, 14
Remark: While this quote is known as Aristotle's, he did not propose it as his own saying, but as a citation from another author. The full text is: "But 'change in all things is sweet', as the poet says, because of some vice."
Nicomachean Ethics

Change

“May not we then confidently pronounce that man happy who realizes complete goodness in action, and is adequately furnished with external goods? Or should we add, that he must also be destined to go on living not for any casual period but throughout a complete lifetime in the same manner, and to die accordingly, because the future is hidden from us, and we conceive happiness as an end, something utterly and absolutely final and complete? If this is so, we shall pronounce those of the living who possess and are destined to go on possessing the good things we have specified to be supremely blessed, though on the human scale of bliss.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book I, 1101a.10
Nicomachean Ethics

Confidence , Future , Happiness

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning…. All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything; they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.”

Aristotle Rhetoric

Book II, 1389a.31
Rhetoric

Love , Life , Hate , Hope

“The bodies of which the world is composed are solids, and therefore have three dimensions. Now, three is the most perfect number,—it is the first of numbers, for of one we do not speak as a number, of two we say both, but three is the first number of which we say all.”

Aristotle

Moreover, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
I. 1. as translated by William Whewell and as quoted by Florian Cajori, A History of Physics in its Elementary Branches (1899) as Aristotle's proof that the world is perfect.
On the Heavens

World , Perfection

“But for those that are equal to have an unequal share and those that are alike an unlike share is contrary to nature, and nothing contrary to nature is noble.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VII 3.5, 1325b
Politics

Nature

“Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.”

Aristotle book Poetics

1455a.33
Poetics

Madness

“The essential nature (concerning the soul) cannot be corporeal, yet it is also clear that this soul is present in a particular bodily part, and this one of the parts having control over the rest”

Aristotle book Parts of Animals

heart
Parva Naturalia 467b.13–16
Parts of Animals

Soul , Nature , Heart , Parting

“Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.”

Aristotle book Metaphysics

Book XIII, 1078a.33
Metaphysics

Beauty , Error , Mathematics , Science

“Even trifles are most important when they concern the rulers, as was the case of old at Syracuse; for the Syracusan constitution was once changed by a love-quarrel of two young men, who were in the government. The story is that while one of them was away from home his beloved was gained over by his companion, and he to revenge himself seduced the other's wife. They then drew the members of the ruling class into their quarrel and so split all the people into portions. We learn from this story that we should be on our guard against the beginnings of such evils, and should put an end to the quarrels of chiefs and mighty men. The mistake lies in the beginning — as the proverb says — 'Well begun is half done'; so an error at the beginning, though quite small, bears the same ratio to the errors in the other parts.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book V, 1303b.19-30
Politics

Love , Men , People , Error

“We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus [all things being equal] of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses—in short from fewer premisses; for… given that all these are equally well known, where they are fewer knowledge will be more speedily acquired, and that is a desideratum. The argument implied in our contention that demonstration from fewer assumptions is superior may be set out in universal form…”

Aristotle book Posterior Analytics

Book I, Part 25
Also known as Occam's razor or the principle of parsimony / economy (lex parsimoniae)
Richard McKeon (tr.) (1963), p. 150
Posterior Analytics

Knowledge , Universe

“It is not necessary to ask whether soul and body are one, just as it is not necessary to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, nor generally whether the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter are one. For even if one and being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality.”

Aristotle book On the Soul

De Anima ii 1, 412b6–9: About the Mind–body problem
De Anima

Way , Soul

“It is necessary that every thing which is harmonized, should be generated from that which is void of harmony, and that which is void of harmony from that which is harmonized. …But there is no difference, whether this is asserted of harmony, or of order, or composition… the same reason will apply to all of these.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book I, Ch. VI, p. 57.
Physics

“Men … are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause — the wickedness of human nature.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book II, 1263b.15
Politics

Men , Nature , Evil

“If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book I, 1094a.18
Nicomachean Ethics

Life , Knowledge

“We must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book II, 1109a.34 (cf. Nicomachean Ethics, 1131b: ἔστι γὰρ τὸ ἔλαττον κακὸν μᾶλλον αἱρετὸν τοῦ μείζονος [the lesser of two evils is more desirable than the greater])
Nicomachean Ethics

People , Evil

“Plato… introduces two infinities, because both in increase and diminution there appears to be transcendency, and a progression to infinity. Though… he did not use them: for neither is there infinity in numbers by diminution or division; since unity is a minimum: nor by increase; for he extends number as far as to the decad.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. VIII, p. 167.
Physics

Appearance

“[T]hey pronounce absurdly who thus speak, as the Pythagoreans assert: for at the same time they make the infinite to be essence, and distribute it into parts.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. VI, p. 158.
Physics

Time , Parting