Top 500 Aristotle Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “Personal beauty requires that one should be tall; little people may have charm and elegance, but beauty-no.”

— Aristotle

352. “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.”

— Aristotle

353. “People never know each other until they have eaten a certain amount of salt together.”

— Aristotle

354. “It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.”

— Aristotle

355. “All that we do is done with an eye to something else.”

— Aristotle

356. “The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness.”

— Aristotle

357. “It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.”

— Aristotle

358. “If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.”

— Aristotle

359. “To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.”

— Aristotle

360. “Injustice results as much from treating unequals equally as from treating equals unequally.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

362. “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

363. “It is clear that the earth does not move, and that it does not lie elsewhere than at the center.”

— Aristotle

364. “Emotions of any kind are produced by melody and rhythm; therefore by music a man becomes accustomed to feeling the right emotions; music has thus the power to form character, and the various kinds of music based on various modes may be distinguished by their effects on character.”

— Aristotle

365. “One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day.”

— Aristotle

366. “Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

368. “The avarice of mankind is insatiable; at one time two obols was pay enough; but now, when this sum has become customary, men always want more and more without end.”

— Aristotle

369. “The greatest threat to the state is not faction but distraction.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

371. “Happiness, then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.”

— Aristotle

372. “A speaker who is attempting to move people to thought or action must concern himself with Pathos.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

374. “The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.”

— Aristotle

375. “Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.”

— Aristotle

376. “The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom.”

— Aristotle

377. “Man first begins to philosophize when the necessities of life are supplied.”

— Aristotle

378. “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

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

— Aristotle

380. “Democracy arose from men’s thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.”

— Aristotle

381. “To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.”

— Aristotle

382. “Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.”

— Aristotle

383. “Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion, and it is therefore preferable to any individual.”

— Aristotle

384. “A true disciple shows his appreciation by reaching further than his teacher.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

386. “I call that law universal, which is conformable merely to dictates of nature; for there does exist naturally an universal sense of right and wrong, which, in a certain degree, all intuitively divine, even should no intercourse with each other, nor any compact have existed.”

— Aristotle

387. “And of course, the brain is not responsible for any of the sensations at all. The correct view is that the seat and source of sensation is the region of the heart.”

— Aristotle

388. “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

389. “Law is mind without reason.”

— Aristotle

390. “Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.”

— Aristotle

391. “Yellow-colored objects appear to be gold.”

— Aristotle

392. “Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

394. “God and nature create nothing that does not fulfill a purpose.”

— Aristotle

395. “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

396. “The beautiful is that which is desirable in itself.”

— Aristotle

397. “Happiness is the utilization of one’s talents along lines of excellence.”

— Aristotle

398. “Prayers and sacrifices are of no avail.”

— Aristotle

399. “We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.”

— Aristotle

400. “Metaphor is halfway between the unintelligible and the commonplace.”

— Aristotle