Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)
That which is a common concern is very generally neglected. The energies of man are excited by that which depends on himself alone, and of which he only is to reap the whole profit or glory.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
For the roots of plants are analogous to what is called the mouth in an animal, being the organ by which food is admitted.
ARISTOTLE
On Youth & Old Age, Life & Death
Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Every political society forms, it is plain, a sort of community or partnership, instituted for the benefit of the partners. Utility is the end and aim of every such institution; and the greatest and most extensive utility is the aim of that great association, comprehending all the rest, and known by the name of a commonwealth.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Government and subjection, then, are things useful and necessary; they prevail everywhere, in animated as well as in brute matter; from their first origin, some natures are formed to command, and others to obey; the kinds of government and subjection varying with the differences of their objects, but all equally useful for their respective ends.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Nor does the argument about the contrary seem to be well urged. It does not follow, they say, because pain is an evil, that pleasure is a good; for the opposite to evil may be not a good, but some other evil, and both evil and good may stand opposed to something which is neither one nor the other.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
He then alone will strictly be called brave who is fearless of a noble death, and of all such chances as come upon us with sudden death in their train.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Wealth is clearly not the absolute good of which we are in search, for it is a utility, and only desirable as a means.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so. In either case it is persuasive because there is somebody whom it persuades.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure. For the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Whoever, therefore, is unfit to live in a commonwealth, is above or below humanity.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
There are, then, three states of mind ... two vices--that of excess, and that of defect; and one virtue--the mean; and all these are in a certain sense opposed to one another; for the extremes are not only opposed to the mean, but also to one another; and the mean is opposed to the extremes.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
In the case of some people, not even if we had the most accurate scientific knowledge, would it be easy to persuade them were we to address them through the medium of that knowledge; for a scientific discourse, it is the privilege of education to appreciate, and it is impossible that this should extend to the multitude.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Our statements will be adequate if made with as much clearness as the matter allows.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Happiness is a thing which calls for honor rather than for praise.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Reason ... governs like a just and lawful prince, and the little community of man is thus held together and sustained.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics