Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
AristotleRead
The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Anger seeks retribution while hatred desires the complete destruction of its target.
In this quote, Aristotle distinguishes between anger and hatred, suggesting that while anger is often a desire for the person who has wronged us to face consequences for their actions, hatred goes further by wishing that the person simply does not exist. This highlights the deeper, more destructive nature of hatred compared to the more immediate and perhaps more understandable response of anger.
Themes
AngerHatredPhilosophyEmotionHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the effects of negative emotions, this quote can illustrate the destructive power of hatred.
More from Aristotle
All quotes →Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
AristotleRead
For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.
AristotleRead
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
AristotleRead
But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.
AristotleRead
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
AristotleRead
Similar quotes
The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes.
Pauline KaelRead
Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.
Ayn RandRead
God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God's children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.
Desmond TutuRead
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SkinnerRead
Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead