Aristotle (384–322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. He was a pupil of Plato, and his writings cover many subjects.
1756. Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
1757. Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
1758. Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
1759. At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
1760. The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
1761. Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
1762. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
1763. Wit is educated insolence.
1764. The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
879. It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.
880. First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.
881. This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.
882. To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.
883. All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
884. Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.
552. Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.
553. Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
554. Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
555. Friendship is essentially a partnership.
556. The law is reason, free from passion.
557. Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.
558. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
559. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
320. At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst.
321. There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
322. Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
323. Man is by nature a political animal.
324. The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
325. Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.
326. The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
327. Long-lived persons have one or two lines which extend through the whole hand; short-lived persons have two lines not extending through the whole hand.
85. Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
86. Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
87. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
88. Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
89. Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.
90. 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.
