Top 500 Aristotle Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “If you prove the cause, you at once prove the effect; and conversely nothing can exist without its cause.”

— Aristotle

252. “Boundaries don’t protect rivers, people do.”

— Aristotle

253. “No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.”

— Aristotle

254. “Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.”

— Aristotle

255. “Leisure of itself gives pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life, which are experienced, not by the busy man, but by those who have leisure.”

— Aristotle

256. “It is likely that unlikely things should happen.”

— Aristotle

257. “For the real difference between humans and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state.”

— Aristotle

258. “Cruel is the strife of brothers.”

— Aristotle

259. “The young are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.”

— Aristotle

260. “By ‘life,’ we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.”

— Aristotle

261. “The greatest injustices proceed from those who pursue excess, not by those who are driven by necessity.”

— Aristotle

262. “The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.”

— Aristotle

263. “Time is the measurable unit of movement concerning a before and an after.”

— Aristotle

264. “Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?”

— Aristotle

265. “Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to Health.”

— Aristotle

266. “The seat of the soul and the control of voluntary movement – in fact, of nervous functions in general, – are to be sought in the heart. The brain is an organ of minor importance.”

— Aristotle

267. “The precepts of the law may be comprehended under these three points: to live honestly, to hurt no man willfully, and to render every man his due carefully.”

— Aristotle

268. “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”

— Aristotle

269. “Intuition is the source of scientific knowledge.”

— Aristotle

270. “Evil brings men together.”

— Aristotle

271. “The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.”

— Aristotle

272. “The first principle of all action is leisure.”

— Aristotle

273. “To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power. But to decide to whom to give it and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy matter.”

— Aristotle

274. “Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.”

— Aristotle

275. “Every man should be responsible to others, nor should any one be allowed to do just as he pleases; for where absolute freedom is allowed, there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man.”

— Aristotle

276. “Teachers, who educate children, deserve more honour than parents, who merely gave them birth; for the latter provided mere life, while the former ensure a good life.”

— Aristotle

277. “To be always seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls.”

— Aristotle

278. “The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.”

— Aristotle

279. “The ideal man is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy.”

— Aristotle

280. “Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.”

— Aristotle

281. “There is more both of beauty and of raison d’etre in the works of nature- than in those of art.”

— Aristotle

282. “Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.”

— Aristotle

283. “Aristocracy is that form of government in which education and discipline are qualifications for suffrage and office holding.”

— Aristotle

284. “In justice is all virtues found in sum.”

— Aristotle

285. “The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.”

— Aristotle

286. “The purpose of art is to represent the meaning of things. This represents the true reality, not external aspects.”

— Aristotle

287. “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

288. “No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.”

— Aristotle

289. “The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.”

— Aristotle

290. “Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.”

— Aristotle

291. “Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.”

— Aristotle

292. “Money is a guarantee that we may have what we want in the future. Though we need nothing at the moment it insures the possibility of satisfying a new desire when it arises.”

— Aristotle

293. “Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.”

— Aristotle

294. “A true friend is one soul divided into two people.”

— Aristotle

295. “So the good has been well explained as that at which all things aim.”

— Aristotle

296. “A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything.”

— Aristotle

297. “For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the well is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.”

— Aristotle

298. “The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.”

— Aristotle

299. “All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings; there’s too much corruption in the world.”

— Aristotle

300. “One may go wrong in many different ways, but right only in one, which is why it is easy to fail and difficult to succeed.”

— Aristotle