Aristotle

Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal absolutely.

A very populous city can rarely if ever be well governed

All he would have needed to do to verify or refute this theory was to ask a number of men and women to open their mouths so he could count their teeth.

Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal.

The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.

It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken.

Now that practical skills have developed enough to provide adequately for material needs one of these sciences which are not devoted to utilitarian ends [mathematics] has been able to arise in Egypt the priestly caste there having the leisure neces

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.

While those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.

It is easy to fly into a passion - anybody can do that - but to be angry with the right person to the right extent, and at the right time, with the right object, and in the right way - that is not easy and it is not everyone who can do it.

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part if possible than both the other, or if that cannot be at least than either of them separate.

To enjoy the things we ought, and to hate the things we ought, has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

Madness is badness of spirit when one seeks profit from all sources.

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.

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

No notice is taken of a little evil but when it increases it strikes the eye

Again men in general desire the good and not merely what their fathers had.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance nature compulsions habit reason passion and desire.

Friends are an aid to the young to guard them from error, to the elderly to attend to their wants and to supplement their failing power of action, to those in the prime of life to assist them to noble deeds.

The coward calls the brave man rash, the rash man calls him a coward.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war, but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.

The quality of life is determined by its activities.

The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect, it is too exciting.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

A good style must first of all be clear. It must . . . be appropriate.

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views, for these also contributed something by developing before us the powers of thought.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them and the will of the majority is supreme.

We used to feel like the cat playing with the mouse. Now we feel more like the mouse trying to be fast enough, because the attackers are becoming much more like the cat.

The continuum is that which is divisible into indivisible that are infinitely divisible Physics.

The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry and limitation, and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

Yellow-colored objects appear to be gold.

He who confers a benefit on anyone, loves him better than he is beloved.

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.

The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man's everyday wants.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

It is not once nor twice, but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

Get a sun lamp to keep you looking as if you have just come back from somewhere expensive.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief, to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

There are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous

Generally about all perception we can say that a sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet ring without the iron or gold