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

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

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

Well begun is half done.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

By myth I mean the arrangement of the incidents

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

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

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

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as...

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.

Wit is educated insolence.

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

knowledge” of angels, and he devoted far more of his massive Summa Theologica to them than to physics.

We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid...

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...

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

Bad men are full of repentance.

Man is the only animal capable of reasoning, though many others possess the faculty of memory and instruction in common with him.

Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, and we only care what opinion is held of us because of the...

With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.

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

Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement...

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

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

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

The Ideal age for marriage in men is 35. The Ideal age for marriage in women is 18

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

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

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...

To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

When I saw that Moses’ version of the Genesis of the world did not fit sufficiently in many ways with Aristotle and the rest of the philosophers, I began to have doubts about the truth...

The secret to humor is surprise.

You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him...

The female is, as it were, a mutilated male, and the catamenia are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it.

In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as...

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

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

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable...

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.”— Aristotle