Below is a hand-picked collection of brilliant quotes from the Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, on topics including, but not limited to, freedom, happiness, friendship, god, love, education, and poetry.
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1. “Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but with regard to their mode of life.”
2. “All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.”
3. “Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.”
4. “Happiness belongs to the self sufficient.”
5. “Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.”
6. “We acquire a particular quality by acting in a particular way.”
8. “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
9. “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.”
10. “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”
11. “Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.”
12. “For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.”
13. “All men by nature desire knowledge.”
14. “Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.”
15. “I have gained this by philosophy; that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.”
16. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
17. “Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.”
18. “No great genius is without an admixture of madness.”
19. ”Always prefer the probable impossible to the improbable possible.”
20. “Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.”
21. “We cannot learn without pain.”
22. “To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.”
23. “The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.”
24. “The secret to humor is surprise.”
25. “Through discipline comes freedom.”
26. “The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.”
27. “Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
28. “The actuality of thought is life.”
29. “A friend is a second self, so that our consciousness of a friend’s existence…makes us more fully conscious of our own existence.”
30. “The gods too are fond of a joke.”
31. “We must be neither cowardly nor rash but courageous.”
32. “It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.”
33. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
34. “Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not easy.”
35. “Hope is a waking dream.”
36. “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
37. “Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”
38. “Anything whose presence or absence makes no discernible difference is no essential part of the whole.”
39. “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
40. “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
41. “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”
42. “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
43. “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
44. “He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.”
45. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”
46. “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
47. “Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.”
48. “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies,”
for the hardest victory is over self.”
49. “All men by nature desire to know.”
50. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
51. “Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.”
52. “Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.”
53. “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”
54. “Excellence is an art won by training and habitation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.”
55. “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
56. “The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.”
57. “The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.”
58. “Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.”
59. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
60. “Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.”