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Responsibility
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No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.
-Aristotle
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Rest, Leisure
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The end of labor is to gain leisure.
-Aristotle
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We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace.
-Aristotle
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Revolution
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For as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions; but they will not so soon flow from anything else as from the disagreement between virtue and vice, and next to that between poverty and riches.
-Aristotle
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In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interests are at stake.
-Aristotle
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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.
-Aristotle
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Selfishness
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That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill.
-Aristotle
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Society
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Nor was civil society founded merely to preserve the lives of its members; but that they might live well: for otherwise a state might be composed of slaves, or the animal creation... nor is it an alliance mutually to defend each other from injuries, or for a commercial intercourse. But whosoever endeavors to establish wholesome laws in a state, attends to the virtues and vices of each individual who composes it; from whence it is evident, that the first care of him who would found a city, truly deserving that name, and not nominally so, must be to have his citizens virtuous.
-Aristotle
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Solitude
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He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
-Aristotle, Politics
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Soul
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The soul never thinks without a picture.
-Aristotle
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We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
-Aristotle
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Stubbornness
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Obstinate people can be divded into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.
-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. VII
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Success & Failure
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For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.
-Aristotle
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Suffering
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Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
-Aristotle
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Teaching
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The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
-Aristotle
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Tragedy
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The true end of tragedy is to purify the passions.
-Aristotle
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Tragedy is a representation of action that is worthy of serious attention, complete in itself and of some magnitude - bringing about by means of pity and fear the purging of such emotions.
-Aristotle
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Trouble, Troubles
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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 under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
-Aristotle
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Truth
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The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
-Aristotle
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Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
-Aristotle
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Virtue
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All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
-Aristotle
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Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
-Aristotle
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The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
-Aristotle
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Youth
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The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
-Aristotle
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They Young People have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things -- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning -- all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything -- they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.
-Aristotle
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Books by and about Aristotle