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Greek critic, logician, naturalist, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist Aristotle (in most languages other than English known as Aristoteles) was a Greek philosopher who lived from 384 to 322 BC. Along with Plato, he is often considered to be one of the two most influential philosophers in Western thought. Quotes All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness
that we deserve them. Education is the best provision for the journey to old age. Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject
which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will
not bear serious examination is false wit. In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those
who show their good qualities. It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it. It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. Law is mind without reason. Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most
terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice. 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 put perfection in the work. Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. The gods too are fond of a joke. The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before
the law. To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to
be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute. To perceive is to suffer. We are what we repeatedly do. Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because
youth is sweet and they are growing. It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen. Misfortune shows those who are not really friends. I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded
what others do only from fear of the law. Liars when they speak the truth are not believed. What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes
his enemies. All men by nature desire knowledge. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by
doing them. It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible
only in one way. One swallow does not make a summer. Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious
of our own existence. To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has
the greatest bearing on excellence of character. We make war that we may live in peace. We must as second best...take the least of the evils. With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must
try to have and use it. Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other
goods. Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time
and is forgotten through the lapse of Time. A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established
for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political
society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their
fathers had. Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain
unaltered. If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be
found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike
share in the government to the utmost. It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live
only for the gratification of it. Law is order, and good law is good order. Man is by nature a political animal. Nature does nothing uselessly. The basis of a democratic state is liberty. They should rule who are able to rule best. Well begun is half done. A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end. Evil draws men together. It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the
educated when addressing popular audiences. Music has a power of forming the character, and should therefore
be introduced into the education of the young.
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