Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, logician, and scientist. The founder of the science of logic, he made significant and lasting contributions to nearly every aspect of human knowledge. Aristotle is one of the most significant figures in philosophy—his achievement has been fundamental to the development of Western philosophy.
Born in the small Greek town of Stagiros, later Stagira, in Greek Macedonia, Aristotle joined Plato’s Academy at the age of 17. He remained there for 20 years, and even though his respect for Plato was always great, differences developed, which ultimately caused a rift.
After Plato’s death, Aristotle tutored the young Alexander the Great and founded the Lyceum school of philosophy outside Athens in 335 BCE. The Lyceum is the forerunner of modern educational and research institutions.
Aristotle is one of the most prominent thinkers in the history of Western thought. His work was fundamental to Islāmic and medieval Christian philosophy—in Arabic philosophy, he was known only as “The First Teacher;” in the West, he was “The Philosopher.”
Aristotle produced a large number of writings, but few have survived. They cover nearly every branch of human knowledge—logic, ethics, metaphysics, politics, the weather, planetary motions, natural science, and physics. His principal works are the Organon (six treatises on logic and syllogism,) Politics (the conduct of the state,) Poetics (analysis of poetry and tragedy,) and Rhetoric.
Aristotle organized all the knowledge of his time into a coherent whole, which served as the basis for much of medieval science and philosophy. He espoused the principle of the golden mean (as did Confucius, independently) that the best path in life was the one between two extremes, or “moderation in all things.”
Along with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was the most influential of Greek philosophers who laid the foundations of Western philosophy with the help of Presocratic Greek philosophy. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, Aristotle was largely forgotten by the West. In the intervening time, he had a profound effect on the development of Islāmic philosophy. Islāmic scholarship eventually provided for medieval Christian scholasticism, and Aristotle’s scholarship was resurrected in particular through the work of Thomas Aquinas.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Aristotle
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.
—Aristotle
Topics: Politics, Politicians
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.
—Aristotle
The greatest crimes are caused by surfeit, not by want.
—Aristotle
Topics: Justice, Crime
Anything that we have to learn we learn by the actual doing of it… we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.
—Aristotle
Topics: Doing, Ethics, Become, Learn, Act
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
—Aristotle
Topics: Feelings, Happiness, Self-reliance, Confidence
Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard.
—Aristotle
Topics: Praise
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
Topics: Tragedy
The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.
—Aristotle
Topics: Charity, Poor
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
—Aristotle
Topics: Justice
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
—Aristotle
Topics: Morals, Morality
It is more difficult to organize peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not well organized.
—Aristotle
Topics: Peace
Between friends there is no need of justice.
—Aristotle
Topics: Friendship
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.
—Aristotle
Topics: Friendship, Friends
To die in order to avoid anything that is evil and disagreeable, is not the part of a brave man, but of a coward; for it is cowardice to shun the trials and crosses of life, not undergoing death because it is honorable, but to avoid evil.
—Aristotle
Topics: Suicide
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
—Aristotle
Topics: Acting, Habit, Ethics, Action
The search for truth is in one way hard and in another way easy, for it is evident that no one can master it fully or miss it wholly. But each adds a little to our knowledge of nature, and from all the facts assembled there arises a certain grandeur.
—Aristotle
Topics: Truth
There is a cropping-time in the races of men, as in the fruits of the field; and sometimes, if the shock be good, there springs up for a time a succession of splendid men; and then comes a period of barrenness.
—Aristotle
Topics: Man
It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than even by good laws.
—Aristotle
Topics: Government
Every art and every inquiry, as well as every practical pursuit, seems to aim at some good, whereby it has been well said that the good is that at which all things aim.
—Aristotle
Topics: Goals
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
—Aristotle
Topics: Animals
One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.
—Aristotle
Topics: Doing
Anyone can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everyone’s power and that is not easy.
—Aristotle
Topics: Power
He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude
—Aristotle
Topics: Solitude
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
—Aristotle
Topics: Friends and Friendship, Friendship
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
—Aristotle
Topics: Poets, Poetry, Art
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
Topics: Soul
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of out own existence.
—Aristotle
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
—Aristotle
Topics: Energy
A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
—Aristotle
Topics: Cities, City Life
We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.
—Aristotle
Topics: Anger
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