Aristotle Quotes

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy. All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established. Hope is a waking dream. Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion. Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I have gained this by philosophy… I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law. Anybody can become angry, that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self. The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain. Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, choice, not chance, determines your destiny. Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach. The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace. A friend to all is a friend to none. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness. Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well. To perceive is to suffer. He who has overcome his fears will truly be free. Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader. Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Wit is educated insolence. All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something. Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age. Happiness depends upon ourselves. Happiness is a state of activity. We make war that we may live in peace. The Law is Reason free from Passion. A friend is a second self. Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. xcellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. A friend is a second self. Misfortune shows those who are not really friends. All men by nature desire knowledge. The secret to humor is surprise. Through discipline comes freedom. Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are therir own. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others. To lead an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd. The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Aristotle

384 BC - 322 BC