Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it... then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that if all tools could perform their intended functions autonomously, there would be no need for skilled workers or subservient laborers.
Aristotle's quote reflects on the nature of labor and the division of work in society. It implies that the capability of tools and automation has a direct correlation with the roles and hierarchies that exist among people. Should tools and machines advance to a point where they could accomplish tasks without human intervention, the need for skilled workers and lower classes would diminish, leading to a rethinking of labor, expertise, and social structure.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of automation on jobs, this quote could illustrate the potential consequences of advanced technology on labor.
More from Aristotle
All quotes →Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
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.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
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To get a man soundly saved it is not enough to put on him a pair of new breeches, to give him regular work, or even to give him a University education. These things are all outside a man, and if the inside remains unchanged you have wasted your labor. You must in some way or other graft upon the man's nature a new nature, which has in it the element of the Divine.
It's so graceless, being a martyr. It's honoring your adversaries too much.
by making himself a priest made himself a demon.
At death, you're going to be needing some spiritual guidance and some kind of inner knowledge that extends beyond the boundaries of the physical world... it's what's inside that counts.
In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.