Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. At eighteen, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government – and constitute the first comprehensive system...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
As our acts vary, our habits will follow in their course.
The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.
Men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
For it is not true, as some treatise-mongers lay down in their systems, of the probity of the speaker, that it contributes nothing to persuasion; but moral character nearly, I may say, carries with it the most sovereign efficacy in making credible.
Neglect of an effective birth control policy is a never-failing source of poverty which, in turn, is the parent of revolution and crime.
If then it be possible that one contrary should exist, or be called into existence, the other contrary will also appear to be possible.
One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.
The brave man, if he be compared with the coward, seems foolhardy; and, if with the foolhardy man, seems a coward.
Wit is well-bred insolence.
Without virtue it is difficult to bear gracefully the honors of fortune.
Purpose ... is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts.
Purpose is a desire for something in our own power, coupled with an investigation into its means.
If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.
Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.