Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist
14 quotes in the MindQuotes library.
Reading guide
Aristotle benefits from an introduction and small steps: his questions remain very concrete, but his vocabulary asks for attention.
Our starting point
Reflecting on happiness, virtues, and the good life
It is the richest text for understanding his ideas about habits, the mean, and flourishing.
Exploring his thought on civic and collective life
Read it next, once the notions of virtue and common good from the Ethics feel familiar.
Merchant links help compare editions. Recommendations are editorially independent.
“If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again. - Aaliyah (song lyrics) -% 0r You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event - it is a habit.”Create visual
“Happiness depends upon ourselves .”Create visual
“Happiness is a state of activity.”Create visual
“. . . happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it. . . .”Create visual
“If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.”Create visual
“He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.”Create visual
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”Create visual
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”Create visual
“All men by nature desire to know.”Create visual
“What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not do.”Create visual
“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.”Create visual
“To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.”Create visual
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”Create visual
“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”Create visual