Aristotle: Good

Aristotle was Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy. Explore interesting quotes on good.

Aristotle: 460 quotes254 likes

“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

“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

“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

“Perhaps then we must begin with such facts as are known to us from individual experience. It is necessary therefore that the person who is to study, with any tolerable chance of profit, the principles of nobleness and justice and politics generally, should have received a good moral training.”

Bk I, Ch II
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

“And surely to know what this good is, is of great importance for the conduct of life, for in that case we shall be like archers shooting at a definite mark, and shall be more likely to do what is right. But, if this is the case, we must try to comprehend, in outline at least, what it is and to which of the sciences it belongs.”

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

“If, then, in the sphere of action there is some one end which we desire for its own sake, and for the sake of which we desire every thing else; and if we do not choose every thing for the sake of something else, for this would go on without limit, and our desire would be idle and futile, it is clear that this must be the supreme good, and the best thing of all.”

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

“Every art, and every system, and in like manner every action and purpose aims, it is thought, at some good; for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the good is, ‘that at which all things aim.’”

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

“Now men seem, not unreasonably, to form their notions of the supreme good and of happiness from the lives of men.”

The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)