Aristotle Quotes
More Aristotle Quotes
Although Aristotle may have been right to claim that a desire to know is part of the fundamental constitution of human nature, ... Nietzsche is also correct to emphasize that the impulse to evaluate our surroundings, our fellows, and ourselves is at least as deeply rooted in our human nature as is any natural “desire to know.” “Der Mensch ist ein abschätzendes Tier.”
raymond geuss— pp. 38-39 (Philosophy and Real Politics (2008))
He used to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter; 18 but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it, while Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God"; that Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny"; Theophrastus , "a silent deceit"; Theocritus , "an ivory mischief"; Carneades , "a sovereignty which stood in need of no guards".
diogenes laërtius— The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics, Aristotle, 9.
From Aristophanes to Aristotle, the attack on the demagogues always falls back on the one central question: in whose interest does the the leader lead?
moses i. finley— Chapter 2, Athenian Demagogues, p. 43
Since the time of Plato and Aristotle philosophers have had an interest in taking note of common fallacies in reasoning.
randal marlin— Chapter Three, Propaganda Technique, p. 110
Who was hiër in philosophieTo Aristotle, in our tonge, but thow?
thomas occleve— Also, who was higher in Philosophy To Aristotle, in our tongue, but thou?
— Line 2087; vol. 3, p. 76; translation from George Carver (ed.) The Catholic Tradition in English Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1928) p. 16.
Aristotle Onassis rescued me at a moment when my life was engulfed with shadows. He brought me into a world where one could find both happiness and love. We lived through many beautiful experiences together which cannot be forgotten, and for which I will be eternally grateful.
jacqueline kennedy onassis— Statement at the funeral of Aristotle Onassis, as quoted in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis : A Life (2000) by Donald Spoto
When it is known that Plato put his own words in Socrates' mouth (Aristotle says this) there should be no reason to doubt that he could have put his own words into other mouths too.
— Ch. 29 (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974))
For him was lever han at his beddes hed A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red, Of Aristotle , and his philosophie, Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie. But all be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.
Geoffrey Chaucer— General Prologue, l. 295-300.
Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. […] These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. […] To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle ’s Politics are out of date.
barry goldwater— The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell
Most impediments to scientific understanding are conceptual locks, not factual lacks. Most difficult to dislodge are those biases that escape our scrutiny because they seem so obviously, even ineluctably, just. We know ourselves best and tend to view other creatures as mirrors of our own constitution and social arrangements. ( Aristotle , and nearly two millennia of successors, designated the large bee that leads the swarm as a king.)
stephen jay gould— "Glow, Big Glowworm", p. 256
Plato is my friend Aristotle is my friend but my greatest friend is truth.
Plato— Isaac Newton, Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae [Certain Philosophical Questions] (c. 1664).
Aristotle says the infinite is imperfect, unfinished, and therefore unthinkable; it is formless and confused. Only as objects are delimited and distinct do they have a nature.
— Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 1972
The relationship of point to line bothered the Greeks and led Aristotle to separate the two. Though he admits points are on lines, he says that a line is not made up of points and that the continuous cannot be made up of the discrete. This distinction contributed also to the presumed need for separating number from geometry, since to the Greeks numbers were discrete and geometry dealt with continuous magnitudes.
— Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 1972
Aristotle had considered the question of whether space is infinite and gave six nonmathematical arguments to prove that it is finite; he foresaw that this question would be troublesome.
— Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 1972
Aristotle said * * * melancholy men of all others are most witty.
robert burton— Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I, Section III. Memb. 1. Subsect. 3.
Aristotle 's failure in Biology is not less conspicuous than his failure in Mechanics; yet the ideas of Final Cause, Likeness, and Vitality , which are said to be the ideas appropriate to this science, were assuredly possessed by him with a distinctness unsurpassed in modern times.
— George Henry Lewes (1864) Aristotle: a Chapter from the History of Science, Ch.3 Ancient Science
Roger Bacon expressed a feeling which afterwards moved many minds, when he said that if he had the power he would burn all the works of the Stagirite, since the study of them was not simply loss of time, but multiplication of ignorance. Yet in spite of this outbreak every page is studded with citations from Aristotle, of whom he everywhere speaks in the highest admiration.
george henry lewes— George Henry Lewes, Aristotle: a Chapter from the History of Science (1864)
Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, "That when they speak truth they are not believed."
— Aristotle, 9.
This misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato , who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle , Galen , and others which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.
Francis Bacon— Francis Bacon, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605)
[ Aristotle ] totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." ...It is also pertinent to inquire, what is the difference between the "formal cause" of Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato? ... Yet Aristotle is forever congratulating himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and the "final cause"!
— Benjamin Franklin Cocker, Christianity and Greek Philosophy (1870) p. 299
In the old philosophy, a curious conjunction of ethical and physical prejudices had led to the notion that there was something ethically bad and physically obstructive about matter. Aristotle attributes all irregularities and apparent dysteleologies in nature to the disobedience, or sluggish yielding, of matter to the shaping and guiding influence of those reasons and causes which were hypostatised in his ideal 'Forms.'
thomas henry huxley— Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (1889)
The atomists , unlike Socrates , Plato , and Aristotle , sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause.
bertrand russell— Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.
Ben Jonson— Ben Jonson, The works of Ben Jonson, Vol. 9 (1816), p. 240
Roger Bacon expressed a feeling which afterwards moved many minds, when he said that if he had the power he would burn all the works of the Stagirite, since the study of them was not simply loss of time, but multiplication of ignorance. Yet in spite of this outbreak every page is studded with citations from Aristotle, of whom he everywhere speaks in the highest admiration.
george henry lewes— George Henry Lewes, Aristotle: a Chapter from the History of Science (1864)
Aristotle forever, but Truth even for longer than that.
— Francis Lieber, in a letter to S. A. Allibone, New York, May, 1857, in The Life And Letters of Francis Lieber (1882), p. 295
Aristotle, who foresaw so many things, never dreamed of the social truth. Cuvier , whose sagacity is so highly lauded, was constrained to yield homage to the genius of Aristotle in Natural History; for myself, who am at this date in full possession of social truth, in politics Aristotle only inspires me with profound pity.
— Jules Sandeau, in Money-Bags and Titles: A Hit at the Follies of the Age (1850), Ch. XVIII, p. 185 (said by Timoleon to his father Levrault).
Aristotle especially, both by speculation and observation... reached something like the modern idea of a succession of higher organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion of "a perfecting principle" in Nature. With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude view remained...
Andrew Dickson White— Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, Ch. 1 (1896)
Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.
— Plutarch, On Exile, 12 (Moralia, 604D)
