Explore Quotes by Aristotle

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

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.