Top 500 Aristotle Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “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

402. “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

403. “A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.”

— Aristotle

404. “The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”

— Aristotle

405. “Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.”

— Aristotle

406. “We deliberate not about ends, but about means.”

— Aristotle

407. “Perception starts with the eye.”

— Aristotle

408. “Friendship is essentially a partnership.”

— Aristotle

409. “The only stable principle of government is equality according to proportion, and for every man to enjoy his own.”

— Aristotle

410. “The activity of happiness must occupy an entire lifetime; for one swallow does not a summer make.”

— Aristotle

411. “It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.”

— Aristotle

412. “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”

— Aristotle

413. “The citizens begin by giving up some part of the constitution, and so with greater ease the government change something else which is a little more important, until they have undermined the whole fabric of the state.”

— Aristotle

414. “Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.”

— Aristotle

415. “Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.”

— Aristotle

416. “Between friends there is no need of justice.”

— Aristotle

417. “The actuality of thought is life.”

— Aristotle

418. “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

419. “We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.”

— Aristotle

420. “There are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.”

— Aristotle

421. “A gentleman is not disturbed by anything.”

— Aristotle

422. “The blood of a goat will shatter a diamond.”

— Aristotle

423. “It is the characteristic of the magnanimous man to ask no favor but to be ready to do kindness to others.”

— Aristotle

424. “Men are good in but one way, but bad in many.”

— Aristotle

425. “A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.”

— Aristotle

426. “Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it; People become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarily, we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.”

— Aristotle

427. “A right election can only be made by those who have knowledge;.”

— Aristotle

428. “A city is composed of different kinds of men; similar people cannot bring a city into existence.”

— Aristotle

429. “The light of the day is followed by night, as a shadow follows a body.”

— Aristotle

430. “Art is a higher type of knowledge than experience.”

— Aristotle

431. “Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

433. “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

434. “Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.”

— Aristotle

435. “Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.”

— Aristotle

436. “We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses – in short, from fewer premises.”

— Aristotle

437. “The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society.”

— Aristotle

438. “Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.”

— Aristotle

439. “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

440. “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

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

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

443. “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

444. “Distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

446. “We can do noble acts without ruling the earth and sea.”

— Aristotle

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

— Aristotle

448. “What is the highest good in all matters of action? To the name, there is almost complete agreement; for uneducated and educated alike call it happiness, and make happiness identical with the good life and successful living. They disagree, however, about the meaning of happiness.”

— Aristotle

449. “Irrational passions would seem to be as much a part of human nature as is reason.”

— Aristotle

450. “Imagination is a sort of faint perception.”

— Aristotle