Top 500 Aristotle Quotes (2023 Update)
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451. “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.”

— Aristotle

452. “Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative.”

— Aristotle

453. “The pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more. 1153a 23.”

— Aristotle

454. “There is always something new coming out of Africa.”

— Aristotle

455. “A body in motion can maintain this motion only if it remains in contact with a mover.”

— Aristotle

456. “For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.”

— Aristotle

457. “A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.”

— Aristotle

458. “The soul becomes prudent by sitting and being quiet.”

— Aristotle

459. “Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.”

— Aristotle

460. “Now property is part of a household, and the acquisition of property part of household-management; for neither life itself nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities.”

— Aristotle

461. “Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire.”

— Aristotle

462. “The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.”

— Aristotle

463. “If some animals are good at hunting and others are suitable for hunting, then the Gods must clearly smile on hunting.”

— Aristotle

464. “Philosophy can make people sick.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

466. “We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.”

— Aristotle

467. “There is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom.”

— Aristotle

468. “Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.”

— Aristotle

469. “Nature, as we say, does nothing without some purpose; and for thepurpose of making mana political animal she has endowed him alone among the animals with the power of reasoned speech.”

— Aristotle

470. “For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.”

— Aristotle

471. “What soon grows old? Gratitude.”

— Aristotle

472. “In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.”

— Aristotle

473. “The brave man, if he be compared with the coward, seems foolhardy; and, if with the foolhardy man, seems a coward.”

— Aristotle

474. “Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.”

— Aristotle

475. “Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all other advantages.”

— Aristotle

476. “Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?”

— Aristotle

477. “The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy.”

— Aristotle

478. “The mass of mankind are evidently slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts.”

— Aristotle

479. “To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.”

— Aristotle

480. “The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist.”

— Aristotle

481. “Fine friendship requires duration rather than fitful intensity.”

— Aristotle

482. “If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.”

— Aristotle

483. “To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.”

— Aristotle

484. “We ought, so far as it lies within our power, to aspire to immortality, and do all that we can to live in conformity with the highest that is within us; for even if it is small in quantity, in power and preciousness, it far excels all the rest.”

— Aristotle

485. “The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.”

— Aristotle

486. “But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.”

— Aristotle

487. “Being a father is the most rewarding thing a man whose career has plateaued can do.”

— Aristotle

488. “Now the greatest external good we should assume to be the thing which we offer as a tribute to the gods, and which is most coveted by men of high station, and is the prize awarded for the noblest deeds; and such a thing is honor, for honor is clearly the greatest of external goods.”

— Aristotle

489. “We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.”

— Aristotle

490. “Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.”

— Aristotle

491. “People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.”

— Aristotle

492. “When Pleasure is at the bar the jury is not impartial.”

— Aristotle

493. “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

494. “Man’s best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish for his sake, even if no one is to know of it.”

— Aristotle

495. “Art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning.”

— Aristotle

496. “Tragedy is an imitation not of men but of a life, an action.”

— Aristotle

497. “I say that habit’s but a long practice, friend, and this becomes men’s nature in the end.”

— Aristotle

498. “Between husband and wife friendship seems to exist by nature, for man is naturally disposed to pairing.”

— Aristotle

499. “In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.”

— Aristotle

500. “It is their character indeed that makes people who they are. But it is by reason of their actions that they are happy or the reverse.”

— Aristotle