Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
AristotleRead
We ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things....We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible, and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote encourages us to rise above our human nature and strive for higher ideals.
Aristotle suggests that while we are inclined to focus on mundane human concerns, we should instead aspire to embody our highest potential and live according to noble principles. He emphasizes that even small efforts to embrace our higher selves can yield greater significance than any worldly achievement.
Themes
Higher SelfImmortalityHuman NatureIdeals
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal development and self-improvement, I might reference this quote to inspire others to aspire to their best selves.
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
[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . .
Alexander HamiltonRead
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
Lysander SpoonerRead
How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I've come to believe.
Stephen KingRead
For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men, Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Gloin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For Men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?
Douglas AdamsRead
If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far: I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself... something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.
Wendell BerryRead