Aristote citations
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Aristote est un philosophe grec de l'Antiquité. Avec Platon, dont il fut le disciple à l'Académie, il est l'un des penseurs les plus influents que le monde occidental ait connu. Il est aussi l'un des rares à avoir abordé presque tous les domaines de connaissance de son temps : biologie, physique, métaphysique, logique, poétique, politique, rhétorique et de façon ponctuelle l'économie. Chez Aristote, la philosophie est comprise dans un sens plus large : elle est à la fois recherche du savoir pour lui-même, interrogation sur le monde et science des sciences.

La science comprend pour lui trois grands domaines : la science théorique, la science pratique et la science productive ou poïétique . La science théorique constitue la meilleure utilisation que l'homme puisse faire de son temps libre. Elle est composée de la « philosophie première » ou métaphysique, de la mathématique et de la physique, appelée aussi philosophie naturelle. La science pratique tournée vers l'action est le domaine de la politique et de l'éthique. La science productive couvre le domaine de la technique et de la production de quelque chose d'extérieur à l'homme. Entrent dans son champ l'agriculture, mais aussi la poésie, la rhétorique et, de façon générale, tout ce qui est fait par l'homme. La logique, quant à elle, n'est pas considérée par Aristote comme une science, mais comme l'instrument qui permet de faire progresser les sciences. Exposée dans un ouvrage intitulé Organon, elle repose sur deux concepts centraux : le syllogisme, qui marquera fortement la scolastique, et les catégories .

La nature tient une place importante dans la philosophie d'Aristote. Selon lui, les matières naturelles possèdent en elles-mêmes un principe de mouvement . Par suite, la physique est consacrée à l'étude des mouvements naturels provoqués par les principes propres de la matière. Au-delà, pour sa métaphysique, le dieu des philosophes est le premier moteur, celui qui met en mouvement le monde sans être lui-même mû. De même, tous les vivants ont une âme, mais celle-ci a diverses fonctions. Les plantes ont seulement une âme animée d'une fonction végétative, celle des animaux possède à la fois une fonction végétative et sensitive, celle des hommes est dotée en plus d'une fonction intellectuelle.

La vertu éthique, selon Aristote, est en équilibre entre deux excès. Ainsi, un homme courageux ne doit être ni téméraire, ni couard. Il en découle que l'éthique aristotélicienne est très marquée par les notions de mesure et de phronêsis . Son éthique, tout comme sa politique et son économie, est tournée vers la recherche du Bien. Aristote, dans ce domaine, a profondément influencé les penseurs des générations suivantes. En lien avec son naturalisme, le Stagirite considère la cité comme une entité naturelle qui ne peut perdurer sans justice et sans amitié .

À sa mort, sa pensée connaît plusieurs siècles d'oubli. Il faut attendre la fin de l'Antiquité pour qu'il revienne au premier rang. Depuis la fin de l'Empire romain et jusqu'à sa redécouverte au XIIe siècle, l'Occident, à la différence de l'Empire byzantin et du monde musulman, n'a qu'un accès limité à son œuvre. À partir de sa redécouverte, la pensée d'Aristote influence fortement la philosophie et la théologie de l'Occident durant les quatre à cinq siècles suivants non sans créer des tensions avec la pensée d'Augustin d'Hippone. Associée au développement des universités, qui débute au XIIe siècle, elle marque profondément la scolastique et, par l'intermédiaire de l’œuvre de Thomas d'Aquin, le christianisme dans sa version catholique.

Au XVIIe siècle, la percée de l'astronomie scientifique avec Galilée puis Newton discrédite le géocentrisme. Il s'ensuit un profond recul de la pensée aristotélicienne dans tout ce qui touche à la science. Sa logique, l'instrument de la science aristotélicienne, est également critiquée à la même époque par Francis Bacon. Cette critique se poursuit aux XIXe siècle et XXe siècle où Frege, Russell et Dewey retravaillent en profondeur et généralisent la syllogistique. Au XIXe siècle, sa philosophie connaît un regain d'intérêt. Elle est étudiée et commentée entre autres par Schelling et Ravaisson, puis Heidegger, ainsi qu'à sa suite par Leo Strauss et Hannah Arendt, deux philosophes considérés par Kelvin Knight comme des néo-aristotéliciens « pratiques ». Plus de 2 300 ans après sa mort, sa pensée demeure toujours étudiée et commentée par la philosophie occidentale. Wikipedia  

✵ 384 av. J.-C. – 321 av. J.-C.
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Aristote citations célèbres

Citations sur les hommes et les garçons de Aristote

Aristote Citations

Aristote: Citations en anglais

“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.”

Aristotle livre Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics
Source: Book I, 1098a-b; §7 as translated by W. D. Ross
Contexte: 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.

“Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”

Aristotle livre Politique

Book I, 1258b.4
Politics
Contexte: 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.

“Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be”

Aristotle livre Nicomachean Ethics

Book I, 1099b.22: Quoted in Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:8.
Nicomachean Ethics
Contexte: Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.

“Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.”

Aristotle livre Politique

Book III, 1280b.30–1281a.3
Politics
Contexte: A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange.... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

“Now the activity of the practical virtues is exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned with these seem to be unleisurely. Warlike actions are completely so (for no one chooses to be at war, or provokes war, for the sake of being at war; any one would seem absolutely murderous if he were to make enemies of his friends in order to bring about battle and slaughter); but the action of the statesman is also unleisurely, and-apart from the political action itself—aims at despotic power and honours, or at all events happiness, for him and his fellow citizens—a happiness different from political action, and evidently sought as being different. So if among virtuous actions political and military actions are distinguished by nobility and greatness, and these are unleisurely and aim at an end and are not desirable for their own sake, but the activity of reason, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this augments the activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the supremely happy man are evidently those connected with this activity, it follows that this will be the complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete term of life.”

Aristotle livre Nicomachean Ethics

Book X, 1177b.6
Nicomachean Ethics

“If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal.”

Aristotle livre Métaphysique

Book XII, 1072b.24
Metaphysics
Original: (el) εἰ οὖν οὕτως εὖ ἔχει, ὡς ἡμεῖς ποτέ, ὁ θεὸς ἀεί, θαυμαστόν: εἰ δὲ μᾶλλον, ἔτι θαυμασιώτερον. ἔχει δὲ ὧδε. καὶ ζωὴ δέ γε ὑπάρχει: ἡ γὰρ νοῦ ἐνέργεια ζωή, ἐκεῖνος δὲ ἡ ἐνέργεια: ἐνέργεια δὲ ἡ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν ἐκείνου ζωὴ ἀρίστη καὶ ἀΐδιος.
Source: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0051%3Abook%3D12%3Asection%3D1072b

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Misattributed
Variante: We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.
Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VII: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness: "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy'" (p. 76). The quoted phrases within the quotation are from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7. The misattribution is from taking Durant's summation of Aristotle's ideas as being the words of Aristotle himself.

“The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.”

Aristotle livre Nicomachean Ethics

Book II, 1107a.4
Nicomachean Ethics
Variante: Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

“The single harmony produced by all the heavenly bodies singing and dancing together springs from one source and ends by achieving one purpose, and has rightly bestowed the name not of "disordered" but of "ordered universe" upon the whole.”

Aristotle livre On the Universe

Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mundo, 399a https://archive.org/stream/worksofaristotle03arisuoft#page/n181/mode/2up/search/heavenly
Disputed

“There is… something which is in energy only; and there is something which is both in energy and capacity. …of relatives, one is predicated as according to excess and defect: another according to the effective and passive, and, in short, the motive, and that which may be moved… Motion, however, has not a substance separate from things… But each of the categories subsists in a twofold manner in all things. Thus… one thing pertaining to it is form, and another privation. …So the species of motion and mutation are as many as those of being. But since in every genus of things, there is that which is in entelecheia, and that which is in capacity; motion is the entelecheia of that which is in capacity… That there is energy, therefore, and that a thing then happens to be moved, when this energy exists, and neither prior nor posterior to it, is manifest. … [N]either motion nor mutation can be placed in any other genus; nor have those who have advanced a different opinion concerning it spoken rightly. …for by some motion is said to be difference, inequality, and non-being; though it is not necessary that any of these should be moved… Neither is mutation into these, nor from these, rather than from their opposites. …The cause, however, why motion appears to be indefinite, is because it can neither be simply referred to the capacity, nor to the energy of beings. …[I]t is difficult to apprehend what motion is: for it is necessary to refer it either to privation, or to capacity, or to simple energy; but it does not appear that it can be any of these. The above-mentioned mode, therfore remains, viz. that it is a certain energy; but… difficult to be perceived, but which may have a subsistence.”

Aristotle livre Physics

Book III, Ch. I, pp. 137-147.
Physics

“Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.”

Widely attributed since the mid to late 19th century, this apparently derives from a gloss or commentary on the following passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC), Book 1, Ch. XI (Bekker No. 1100b.13–14):
ὅμως δὲ καὶ ἐν τούτοις διαλάμπει τὸ καλόν, ἐπειδὰν φέρῃ τις εὐκόλως πολλὰς καὶ μεγάλας ἀτυχίας, μὴ δι᾽ ἀναλγησίαν, ἀλλὰ γεννάδας ὢν καὶ μεγαλόψυχος. εἰ δ᾽ εἰσὶν αἱ ἐνέργειαι κύριαι τῆς ζωῆς, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, οὐδεὶς ἂν γένοιτο τῶν μακαρίων ἄθλιος
But nevertheless, even in these [misfortunes], nobility of the soul is conspicuous, when a man bears and digests many and great misfortunes, not from insensibility, but because he is high spirited and magnanimous. But if the energies are the things that constitute the bliss or the misery of life, as we said, no happy man can ever become miserable.
A New Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (1835), 3rd. ed., Oxford: J. Vincent. p. 30
Nevertheless even under these [misfortunes] the force of nobility shines out, when a man bears calmly many great disasters, not from insensibility, but because he is generous and of a great soul. Setting happiness then, as we do, not in the outward surroundings of man, but in his inward state, we may fairly say that no one who has attained to the bliss of virtue will ever justly become an object of pity or contempt.
St. George William Joseph Stock, Lectures in the Lyceum or Aristotle's ethics for English readers (1897), p. 47
Misattributed

“Evils draw men together.”

Aristotle Rhetoric

Book I, 1362b.39: quoting a proverb
Rhetoric

“Man is by nature a political animal.”

Aristotle livre Politique

Book I, 1253a.2
Politics

“Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle; of this, one part has such a principle in the sense of being obedient to one, the other in the sense of possessing one and exercising thought. And, as "life of the rational element" also has two meanings, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what we mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term. Now if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle, and if we say "so-and-so" and "a good so-and-so" have a function which is the same in kind, e. g. a lyre, and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of goodness being added to the name of the function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case, and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.
But we must add "in a complete life."”

Aristotle livre Nicomachean Ethics

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
Book I, 1098a; §7 as translated by W. D. Ross
Variants:
One swallow does not a summer make.
As quoted in A History of Ancient Philosophy: From the Beginning to Augustine (1998) by Karsten Friis Johansen, p. 382
One swallow (they say) no Sommer doth make.
John Davies, in The Scourge of Folly (1611)
One swallow yet did never summer make.
As rendered by William Painter in Chaucer Newly Painted (1623)
One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one sunny day; similarly, one day or a short time does not make a man blessed and happy.
As translated in Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends (1988), by Richard E. Grandy and ‎Richard Warner, p. 483
Nicomachean Ethics

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