Top 500 Aristotle Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.”

— Aristotle

302. “True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.”

— Aristotle

303. “People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just.”

— Aristotle

304. “No science ever defends its first principles.”

— Aristotle

305. “The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.”

— Aristotle

306. “Good moral character is not something that we can achieve on our own. We need a culture that supports the conditions under which self-love and friendship flourish.”

— Aristotle

307. “The principle aim of gymnastics is the education of all youth and not simply that minority of people highly favored by nature.”

— Aristotle

308. “If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.”

— Aristotle

309. “A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.”

— Aristotle

310. “With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.”

— Aristotle

311. “Let us first understand the facts and then we may seek the cause.”

— Aristotle

312. “Plato is my friend, but truth is a better friend.”

— Aristotle

313. “All friendly feelings toward others come from the friendly feelings a person has for himself.”

— Aristotle

314. “Wickedness is nourished by lust.”

— Aristotle

315. “The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.”

— Aristotle

316. “Maybe crying is a means of cleaning yourself out emotionally. Or maybe it’s your last resort; the only way to express yourself when words fail, the same as when you were a baby and had no words.”

— Aristotle

317. “When the looms spin by themselves, we’ll have no need for slaves.”

— Aristotle

318. “It’s the fastest who gets paid, and it’s the fastest who gets laid.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

320. “The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man’s everyday wants.”

— Aristotle

321. “The heart is the perfection of the whole organism. Therefore the principles of the power of perception and the souls ability to nourish itself must lie in the heart.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

323. “Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or, at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned.”

— Aristotle

324. “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.”

— Aristotle

325. “Emotions of any kind can be evoked by melody and rhythm; therefore music has the power to form character.”

— Aristotle

326. “The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it is.”

— Aristotle

327. “It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.”

— Aristotle

328. “The best tragedies are conflicts between a hero and his destiny.”

— Aristotle

329. “Anyone who has no need of anybody but himself is either a beast or a God.”

— Aristotle

330. “A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.”

— Aristotle

331. “Should a man live underground, and there converse with the works of art and mechanism, and should afterwards be brought up into the open day, and see the several glories of the heaven and earth, he would immediately pronounce them the work of such a Being as we define God to be.”

— Aristotle

332. “The Eyes are the organs of temptation, and the Ears are the organs of instruction.”

— Aristotle

333. “The Life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well.”

— Aristotle

334. “In practical matters the end is not mere speculative knowledge of what is to be done, but rather the doing of it. It is not enough to know about Virtue, then, but we must endeavor to possess it, and to use it, or to take any other steps that may make.”

— Aristotle

335. “To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.”

— Aristotle

336. “Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.”

— Aristotle

337. “Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.”

— Aristotle

338. “The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life.”

— Aristotle

339. “Men are marked from the moment of birth to rule or be ruled.”

— Aristotle

340. “My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.”

— Aristotle

341. “It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits.”

— Aristotle

342. “A good style must have an air of novelty, at the same time concealing its art.”

— Aristotle

343. “A life of wealth and many belongings is only a means to happiness. Honor, power, and success cannot be happiness because they depend on the whims of others, and happiness should be self-contained, complete in itself.”

— Aristotle

344. “The intention makes the crime.”

— Aristotle

345. “The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number – tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.”

— Aristotle

346. “Those that deem politics beneath their dignity are doomed to be governed by those of lesser talents.”

— Aristotle

347. “Life cannot be lived, and understood, simultaneously.”

— Aristotle

348. “Suppose, then, that all men were sick or deranged, save one or two of them who were healthy and of right mind. It would then be the latter two who would be thought to be sick and deranged and the former not!”

— Aristotle

349. “Thinking is different from perceiving and is held to be in part imagination, in part judgment.”

— Aristotle

350. “The form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.”

— Aristotle