Aristotle Quotes

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

~ Aristotle

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy.

~ Aristotle

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate action, brave by performing brave actions.

~ Aristotle

- Nicomachean Ethics, 4th cent. B.C.

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

~ Aristotle

Hope is a waking dream.

~ Aristotle

- from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worth-while to live.

~ Aristotle

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

~ Aristotle

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

~ Aristotle

No great genius is without an admixture of madness.

~ Aristotle

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

~ Aristotle

Dignity does not come in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

~ Aristotle

Of mankind in general, the parts are greater than the whole.

~ Aristotle

Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour, for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

~ Aristotle

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

~ Aristotle

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

~ Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

~ Aristotle