Quotes from Aristotle

The soul can not think without a picture.

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Tragedy is an imitation of a whole and complete action of some amplitude. . . . Now a whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.

And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.

Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.

The single harmony produced by all the heavenly bodies singing and dancing together springs from one source and ends by achieving one purpose, and has rightly bestowed the name not of \""disordered\"" but of \""ordered universe\"" upon the whole.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.

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

Evils draw men together.

One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

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.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

Civil confusions often spring from trifles but decide great issues.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.

One swallow does not make a summer.

The greatest crimes are caused by surfeit, not by want.