11 Aristotle Quotes on Philosophy

Aristotle quotes on philosophy

6. It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

14. 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.

15. Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.

36. All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.

38. Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

68. Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. (1451b6)

75. I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

131. That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

134. The complete is more than the sum of its pieces.

149. The soul never thinks without a picture.

161. 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.