QUOTES FROM ARISTOTLE

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist. Born in Stagirus, northern Greece, in 384 BCE .  His writings cover many subjects – including physics , biology, zoology, metaphysics , logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government – and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "Aristotle was the first genuine scientist in history. ... Every scientist is in his debt."

"Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something."

"Excellence 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."

"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality

of the mind next to honor."

"The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think."

" If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out."

"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."

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."

"Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference."

"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."

"The more you know, the more you know you don't know."

"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."

"...happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves..The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement..."

"The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed."

"There are three prominent types of life: pleasure, political and contemplative. The mass

of mankind is slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts; they have some

ground for this view since they are imitating many of those in high places. People of superior refinement identify happiness with honour, or virtue, and generally the political life."

"Some identify Happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophical wisdom, others add or exclude pleasure and yet others include prosperity. We agree with those who identify happiness with virtue, for virtue belongs with virtuous behaviour and virtue is only known by its acts."

"Lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; since virtue is by nature pleasant, they by virtuous actions find their pleasures within themselves."

"Moral excellence is concerned with pleasure and pain; because of pleasure we do bad things and for fear of pain we avoid noble ones. For this reason we ought to be trained from youth, as Plato says: to find pleasure and pain where we ought; this is the purpose of education."