Aristotle: Trending quotes (page 3)
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Book X, 1177b.4
Nicomachean Ethics
Book VII, 7, 1327b http://books.google.com/books?id=QiqGAAAAMAAJ, tr. Benjamian Jowett (1908)
Politics
“The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.”
Book VIII, 1045a.8–10
Cf. Euclid, Elements, Book I, Common Notion 5: "τὸ ὅλον τοῦ μέρους μεῖζον. [The whole is greater than the part.]"
Metaphysics
Book II, 1106b.28
Nicomachean Ethics
Book I, Ch. IX, pp. 73-76.
Physics
Book III, Ch. IV, pp. 152-155.
Physics
“Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.”
Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.
A similar statement was attributed to Aristotle in antiquityː ""Φίλος μὲν Σωκράτης, ἀλλὰ φιλτέρα ἀλήθεια."" [""Socrates is a friend, but truth is a greater.""] — Ammonius Hermiae, Life of Aristotle (as translated in Dictionary of Quotations http://archive.org/details/dictionaryquota02harbgoog (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 527). The variant mentioned above may possibly be derived from a reduction of a statement known to have been made by Isaac Newton, who at the head of notes he titled Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae (Certain Philosophical Questions) wrote in Latin: ""Amicus Plato— amicus Aristoteles— magis amica veritas"" which translates to: ""Plato is my friend— Aristotle is my friend— but my greatest friend is truth."" (c. 1664)
Another possible origin of the ""dear is Plato"" statement is in the Nicomachean Ethics; the Ross translation (of 1096a.11–1096a.16) provides: ""We had perhaps better consider the universal good and discuss thoroughly what is meant by it, although such an inquiry is made an uphill one by the fact that the Forms have been introduced by friends of our own. Yet it would perhaps be thought to be better, indeed to be our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers; for, while both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.""
Note that the last clause, when quoted by itself loses the connection to ""the friends"" who introduced ""the Forms"", Plato above all. Therefore the misattribution could be the result of the ""quote"" actually being a paraphrase which identifies Plato where Aristotle only alludes to him circumspectly.
According to the notes in Plato: Republic Book X, edited by John Ferguson, p. 71, «the familiar 'amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas' is found in Cervantes' Don Quixote II 8 and cannot be traced further back. Cf. Roger Bacon Op. mai. I vii, '<i>amicus est Socrates, magister meus, sed magis est amica veritas</i>'. For the opposite view, see Cicero, T.D. I 17,39, '<i>errare mehercule malo cum Platone . . . quam cum istis vera sentire</i>'.»
Disputed
Variant: Plato is my friend, but the truth is more my friend.
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”
Misattributed
Source: Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (1898), p. 370 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435065322687?urlappend=%3Bseq=458: "If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing—court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." Other versions of the saying were repeated in several of Hubbard's later writings.
Attributed to Aristotle in Bernhoff A. Dahl, Optimize Your Life! http://books.google.gr/books?id=B1Z2XP_DamQC&dq=, Trionics International Inc., 2005, p. 111.
Disputed
“Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.”
1460a.19
Poetics
Variant: It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Source: ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics
Book I, 1098a-b; §7 as translated by W. D. Ross
Nicomachean Ethics
Context: Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably first sketch it roughly, and then later fill in the details. But it would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are due; for any one can add what is lacking. And we must also remember what has been said before, and not look for precision in all things alike, but in each class of things such precision as accords with the subject-matter, and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry. For a carpenter and a geometer investigate the right angle in different ways; the former does so in so far as the right angle is useful for his work, while the latter inquires what it is or what sort of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth. We must act in the same way, then, in all other matters as well, that our main task may not be subordinated to minor questions. Nor must we demand the cause in all matters alike; it is enough in some cases that the fact be well established, as in the case of the first principles; the fact is the primary thing or first principle. Now of first principles we see some by induction, some by perception, some by a certain habituation, and others too in other ways. But each set of principles we must try to investigate in the natural way, and we must take pains to state them definitely, since they have a great influence on what follows. For the beginning is thought to be more than half of the whole, and many of the questions we ask are cleared up by it.
“Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest.”
Book I, 1258b.4
Politics
Context: Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.
Book VIII 1337b.5 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZrDWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA245&dq=%22absorb+and+degrade+the+mind%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=c6NaUbatEYWp4AOWp4CoBA&ved=0CHYQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22absorb%20and%20degrade%20the%20mind%22&f=false, 1885 edition
Politics
Context: There can be no doubt that children should be taught those useful things which are really necessary, but not all things, for occupations are divided into liberal and illiberal; and to young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will be useful to them without vulgarizing them. And any occupation, art, or science which makes the body, or soul, or mind of the freeman less fit for the practice or exercise of virtue is vulgar; wherefore we call those arts vulgar which tend to deform the body, and likewise all paid employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind. There are also some liberal arts quite proper for a freeman to acquire, but only in a certain degree, and if he attend to them too closely, in order to attain perfection in them, the same evil effects will follow.
“Happiness depends upon ourselves”
An interpretative gloss of Aristotle's position in Nicomachean Ethics book 1 section 9, tacitly inserted by J. A. K. Thomson in his English translation The Ethics of Aristotle (1955). The original Greek at Book I 1099b.29 http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=0&query=Arist.%20Eth.%20Nic.%201099b.25, reads ὁμολογούμενα δὲ ταῦτ’ ἂν εἴη καὶ τοῖς ἐν ἀρχῇ, which W. D. Ross translates fairly literally as [a]nd this will be found to agree with what we said at the outset. Thomson's much freer translation renders the same passage thus: [t]he conclusion that happiness depends upon ourselves is in harmony with what I said in the first of these lectures; the words "that happiness depends upon ourselves" were added by Thomson to clarify what "the conclusion" is, but they do not appear in the original Greek of Aristotle. Rackham's earlier English translation added a similar gloss, but averted confusion by confining it to a footnote.
Disputed
Variant: Happiness depends upon ourselves
Source: See http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/aristotle/nicom1b.htm#I9 for the original Greek and Ross's translation; Thomson's translation can be viewed on Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=9SFrNWmO654C&dq=%22happiness+depends+upon+ourselves%22+aristotle&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22happiness+depends+upon+ourselves%22+.
Source: Rackham's translation of this passage is available here http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D9%3Asection%3D8