Aristotle

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet
– Aristotle

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.
– Aristotle

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing
popular audiences.
– Aristotle

All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.
– Aristotle

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
– Aristotle

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased
means permit.
– Aristotle

Wit is well-bred insolence.
– Aristotle

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his
goals.
– Aristotle

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
– Aristotle

Without virtue, man is most unholy and savage, and worst in regard to sex and eating.
– Aristotle

All earthquakes and disasters are warnings; there’s too much corruption in the world.
– Aristotle

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.
– Aristotle

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
– Aristotle

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
– Aristotle

The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
– Aristotle

It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of
it.
– Aristotle

The ultimate end of life is the development of character.
– Aristotle

Nature abhors a vacuum.
– Aristotle

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
– Aristotle

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
– Aristotle

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
– Aristotle

Law is order, and good law is good order.
– Aristotle

We make war that we may live in peace.
– Aristotle

Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves… The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.
– Aristotle

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
– Aristotle

Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.
– Aristotle

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
– Aristotle

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
– Aristotle

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep
out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness; and those in the
prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
– Aristotle

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
– Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
– Aristotle

Wit is educated insolence.
– Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
– Aristotle

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but with regard to
their mode of life.
– Aristotle

Through discipline comes freedom.
– Aristotle

Law is order, and good law is good order.
– Aristotle

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward
significance.
– Aristotle

Nature does nothing uselessly.
– Aristotle

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and
intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. Choice, not chance,
determines your destiny.
– Aristotle

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
– Aristotle

The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.
– Aristotle

We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will
reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.
– Aristotle

It is their character indeed that makes people who they are. But it is by reason of their actions
that they are happy or the reverse.
– Aristotle

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the
hardest victory is over self.
– Aristotle

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
– Aristotle

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
– Aristotle

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and
history only the particular.
– Aristotle

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
– Aristotle

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
– Aristotle

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.
– Aristotle

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
– Aristotle

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
– Aristotle

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
– Aristotle

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

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.
– Aristotle

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion,
habit, reason, passion, and desire.
– Aristotle

We must be neither cowardly nor rash but courageous.
– Aristotle

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the
mind next to honor.
– Aristotle

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
– Aristotle

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions,
brave by performing brave actions.
– Aristotle

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
– Aristotle

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
– Aristotle

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
– Aristotle

Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.
– Aristotle

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.
– Aristotle

Hope is a waking dream.
– Aristotle

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for
these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
– Aristotle

All men seek one goal: success or happiness.
– Aristotle

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
– Aristotle

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
– Aristotle

To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
– Aristotle

All men by nature desire knowledge.
– Aristotle

A friend to all is a friend to none.
– Aristotle

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
– Aristotle

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve
them.
– Aristotle

Anyone can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right
time, and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everyone’s power
and that is not easy.
– Aristotle

There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.
– Aristotle

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

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

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
– Aristotle

The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act
in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.
– Aristotle

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
– Aristotle

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

The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the
good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.
– Aristotle

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
– Aristotle

The law is reason unaffected by desire.
– Aristotle

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on
committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere
fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.
– Aristotle

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
– Aristotle

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is
the worst of all.
– Aristotle

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.
– Aristotle

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of
empires depends on the education of youth.
– Aristotle

All advancement in society begins with the development of the character of the young.
– Aristotle

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
– Aristotle

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need
friendship in addition.
– Aristotle