Insightful Aristotle Quotes on Life, Wisdom & Education

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

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

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

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.

The first principle of all action is leisure.

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. ... We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.

Philosophy can make people sick.

Education is the best provision for old age.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

For nobility is excellence of race.

The laughable is a species of what is disgraceful.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.

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

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