Aristotle Quotes on Society
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Man is by nature a political animal.
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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.
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Men ... are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause-the wickedness of human nature.
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Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
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A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange.... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. (III.1280b30, 1281a3)
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Law is order, and good law is good order.
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The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
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When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.
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Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
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It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
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Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
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The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
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The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.