Aristotle Quotes: 230 Thought-Provoking Insights from History's Greatest Philosopher

“Nature flies from the infinite, for the infinite is unending or imperfect, and Nature ever seeks an end.”

Aristotle book Generation of Animals

Book I, 715b.15
Generation of Animals

Nature

“All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.”

Aristotle book Metaphysics

Book I, 980a.21: Opening paragraph of Metaphysics
The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10
Metaphysics
Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge.

Love , Men , Nature , Sense

“For legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book II, 1103b.4
Nicomachean Ethics

“The infinite… happens to subsist in a way contrary to what is asserted by others: for the infinite is not that beyond which there is nothing, but it is that of which there is always something beyond. …But that pertaining to which there is nothing beyond is perfect and whole. …that of which nothing is absent pertaining to the parts …the whole is that pertaining to which there is nothing beyond. But that pertaining to which something external is absent, that is not all …But nothing is perfect which has not an end; and the end is a bound. On this account… Parmenides spoke better than Melissus: for the latter says that the infinite is a whole; but the former, that the whole is finite, and equally balanced from the middle: for to conjoin the infinite with the universe and the whole, is not to connect line with line.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. IX, pp. 168-169.
Physics

Way , Universe , Parting , Perfection

“The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book I, Part II
Politics

Nature , Parting

“For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant…. Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such… Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos: Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health; but pleasantest is it to win what we love.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book I, 1099a.6
Nicomachean Ethics

Love , Men , Health , Pleasure

“[S]ince causes are four in number, to know them all is the business of the natural philosopher, who also referring to the cause why a thing is to all of them, viz. to matter, form, that which moves, and for the sake of which a thing subsists, physically assigns a reason. Frequently, however, three of these causes pass into one: for the cause why a thing is, and that for the sake of which it is, are one. But that which motion first originates, is in species the same with these… [T]here are three treatises; once concerning that which is immoveable; another concerning that which is moved, indeed, but is incorruptible; and a third concerning corruptible natures. So the cause of why a thing is, is assigned by him who refers to matter, to essence, and to the first mover… But there are two principles which are naturally motive; of which, one is not physical, because it does not contain in itself the principle of motion. And if there is any thing which moves without being moved, it is of this kind; as is that which is perfectly immoveable, that which is the first of all things, together with essence and form: for it is the end, and that for the sake of which a thing subsists. So that since nature is for the sake of something, it is also necessary to know this cause.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book II, Ch. VII, pp. 124-126.
Physics

Motivation , Business , Nature

“Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VII, 1323b.1
Politics

Pleasure , Happiness

“…suppose α without weight, but β possessing weight; and let α pass over space γδ, but β in the same time pass over a space γε,—for that which has weight will be carried through the larger space. If now the heavy body be divided in the proportion that space γε bears to γδ, … and if the whole is carried through the whole space γε, then it must be that a part in the same time would be carried through γδ…”

Aristotle

Book III Ch. II as quoted by Florian Cajori (1899), as Aristotle's explanation of why bodies fall quicker in exact proportion to their weight.
On the Heavens

Time , Parting

“But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.”

Aristotle book Poetics

1459a.4
Poetics

“Remember that time slurs over everything, let all deeds fade, blurs all writings and kills all memories. Except are only those which dig into the hearts of men by love.”

Aristotle

"The Letter of Aristotle to Alexander on the Policy toward the Cities", translated from Lettre d’Aristote à Alexandre sur la politique envers les cités, an Arabic text translated and edited by Józef Bielawski and Marian Plezia (1970), p. 72; translated from an ancient Greek text that survived only in Arabic translation, there is little acceptance that this is an authentic letter of Aristotle.
Disputed

Love , Men , Memory , Time

“[A]ll things as subsist from nature appear to contain in themselves a principle of motion and permanency; some according to place, others according to increase and diminuation; and others according to change in quality.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book II, Ch. I, p. 88.
Physics

Nature , Appearance , Change

“The law is reason unaffected by desire.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book III, 1287a.32
Politics
Variant: The Law is reason free from passion.

Law

“It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book II, 1105b.9
Nicomachean Ethics

People , Way , Thinking

“…. In a word, acts of any kind produce habits or characters of the same kind. Hence we ought to make sure that our acts are of a certain kind; for the resulting character varies as they vary. It makes no small difference, therefore, whether a man be trained in his youth up in this way or that, but a great difference, or rather all the difference.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book II, 1103b
Nicomachean Ethics

Youth , Way , Training

“The best friend is he that, when he wishes a person's good, wishes it for that person's own sake.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book IX, 1168b.1
Variants: My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Nicomachean Ethics

Personality

“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

“According to one mode… nature is thus denominated, viz. the first subject matter to every thing which contains in itself the principle of motion and mutation. But after another mode it is denominated form, which subsists according to definition: for as art is called that which subsists according to art, and that which is artificial; so likewise nature is both called that which is according to nature, and that which is natural. …that which is composed from these is not nature, but consists from nature; as, for instance, man. And this is nature in a greater degree than matter: for every thing is then said to be, when it is form in energy… entelecheia, rather than when it is incapacity.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book II, Ch. I, pp. 93-94.
Physics

Art , Nature

“That body is heavier than another which, in an equal bulk, moves downward quicker.”

Aristotle

IV. 1. as quoted by Florian Cajori (1899)
On the Heavens

“A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book V,1314b.39
Politics

God , Fear , Religion , Appearance

“Just as it sometimes happens that deformed offspring are produced by deformed parents, and sometimes not, so the offspring produced by a female are sometimes female, sometimes not, but male, because the female is as it were a deformed male.”

Aristotle book Generation of Animals

Generation of Animals as translated by Arthur Leslie Peck (1943), p. 175
Generation of Animals

Parent

“A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end.”

Aristotle book Poetics

1450b.26
Poetics

“After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss pleasure. For it is thought to be most intimately connected with our human nature, which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain; it is thought, too, that to enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue of character. For these things extend right through life, with a weight and power of their own in respect both to virtue and to the happy life, since men choose what is pleasant and avoid what is painful; and such things, it will be thought, we should least of all omit to discuss, especially since they admit of much dispute.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book X, 1172a.17
Nicomachean Ethics

Life , Men , Pain , Hate

“But it is better to assume principles less in number and finite, as Empedocles makes them to be. All philosophers… make principles to be contraries… (for Parmenides makes principles to be hot and cold, and these he demominates fire and earth) as those who introduce as principles the rare and the dense. But Democritus makes the principles to be the solid and the void; of which the former, he says, has the relation of being, and the latter of non-being. …it is necessary that principles should be neither produced from each other, nor from other things; and that from these all things should be generated. But these requisites are inherent in the first contraries: for, because they are first, they are not from other things; and because they are contraries, they are not from each other.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book I, Ch. VI, pp. 53-55.
Physics

“[T]he infinite is in capacity. That, however, which is infinite in capacity is not to be assumed as that which is infinite in energy. …[I]t has its being in capacity, and in division and diminution. …[I]t is always possible to assume something beyond it. It does not, however, on this account surpass every definite magnitude; as in division it surpasses every definite magnitude, and will be less.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. VIII, pp. 164-166.
Physics

“Since the science of nature is conversant with magnitudes, motion, and time, each of which must necessarily be either infinite or finite…[we] should speculate the infinite, and consider whether it is or not; and if it is what it is. …[A]ll those who appear to have touched on a philosophy of this kind… consider it as a certain principle of beings. Some, indeed, as the Pythagoreans and Plato, consider it, per se, not as being an accident to any thing else, but as having an essential subsistence… the Pythagoreans… consider the infinite as subsisting in sensibles; for they do not make number to be separate; and they assert that what is beyond the heavens is infinite; but Plato says that beyond the heavens there is not any body, nor ideas, because these are no where: he affirms, however, that the infinite is both in sensibles, and in ideas. …Plato establishes two infinities, viz. the great and the small.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. IV, pp. 150-152.
Physics

Idea , Nature , Appearance , Science

“Let us then enunciate the functions of a state and we shall easily elicit what we want: First there must be food; secondly, arts, for life requires many instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against external assailants….”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VII, 1328b.4
Politics

Life , Food , Art , Communication

“The natural way of doing this [seeking scientific knowledge or explanation of fact] is to start from the things which are more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which are clearer and more knowable by nature; for the same things are not 'knowable relatively to us' and 'knowable' without qualification. So in the present inquiry we must follow this method and advance from what is more obscure by nature, but clearer to us, towards what is more clear and more knowable by nature. Now what is to us plain and obvious at first is rather confused masses, the elements and principles of which became known to us by later analysis…”

Aristotle book Physics

A.1, 184a.16 sqq, source: http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/physics.html, Book I, Part 1, Tr. R. P. Hardie, R. K. Gaye.
Physics

Way , Nature , Knowledge

“[I]t's gravity is the cause; and that which is heavy abides in the middle, and the earth is in the middle: in like manner also, the infinite will abide in itself, through some other cause… and will itself support itself. …[T]he places of the whole and the part are of the same species; as of the whole earth and a clod, the place is downward; and of the whole of fire, and a spark, the place is upward. So that if the place of the infinite is in itself, there will be the same place also of a part of the infinite.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. VII, p. 162.
Physics

Support , Parting

“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 the government to the utmost.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book IV, 1291b.34
Politics

Democracy , Personality

“For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.”

Aristotle book Metaphysics

Metaphysics by Aristotle – Book 1, ClassicalWisdom.com
The second sentence is in Metaphysics A 2, 928<sup>b</sup> 17–20, Aristotle: Metaphysics Beta: Symposium Aristotelicum, Michel Crubellier & Andre´ Laks, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 4.
Metaphysics
Variant: [And] one who experiences a difficulty and who feels wonder thinks that he does not understand..., so that, if it is to escape ignorance that they have practised philosophy, then it is clearly for the sake of knowing, and not for any practical purpose, that they have pursued understanding.

Sun , Star , Universe , Thinking