Quotes About Philosophy

How can a man who, for a significant phase of his formation, shared his master's opposition to rhetoric have in maturity composed a masterpiece of the formal study of rhetoric? This

rhetoric was to be surveyed from the standpoint of philosophy.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

Happiness, then, extends as far as contemplation, and the more contemplation there is in one's life, the happier one is, not incidentally, but in virtue of the contemplation, since this is honourable in itself. Happiness, therefore, will be some form of contemplation.

which we call men [Greek: euyvomoves], or say they have

Happiness requires both complete goodness and a complete lifetime.

There seems to be in us a sort of affinity to musical modes and rhythms, which makes some philosophers say that the soul is a tuning, others, that it possesses tuning.

None of the moral virtues is engendered in us by nature, for no natural property can be altered by habit.

Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas

If we ought to philosophize we ought to philosophize, and if we ought not to philosophize we ought to philosophize ; in either case, therefore, we ought to philosophize. For if philosophy exists we ought certainly to philosophize, because philosophy exists ; and if it does not exist, even so we ought to examine why it does not exist, and in examining this we shall be philosophizing, because examination is what makes philosophy.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The smallest number, strictly speaking, is two.

The best kind of friendship, he maintains, is friendship with those to whom we wish well and with whom we can spend time in shared valuable activities, all because of their virtue.

Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be; Euripides, as they are.

si el alma se encuentra en todo cuerpo dotado de sensibilidad y si además suponemos que el alma es un cuerpo, necesariamente habrá dos cuerpos en el mismo lugar.

And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the [completed] nature is the end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

those who inquire into the number of existents: for they inquire whether the ultimate constituents of existing things are one or many, and if many, whether a finite or an infinite plurality.

a man investigating principles cannot argue with one who denies their existence.

Life is a gift of nature but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom.

For none of the others can exist independently: substance alone is independent: for everything is predicated of substance as subject.

Who, however, is in doubt 'and' awe (thaumázein) about a matter doesn't believe in the thing to begin with. That is why the friend of Stories (mÅ·thos) is also in a certain way a philosopher; because the Story arises out of awe.' (Aristotle's Metaphysics: Book I. Part II)

If, then, 'substance' is not attributed to anything, but other things are attributed to it, how does 'substance' mean what is rather than what is not?

The second set assert that the contrarieties are contained in the one and emerge from it by segregation, (20) for example Anaximander and also all those who assert that 'what is' is one and many, like Empedocles and Anaxagoras; for they too produce other things from their mixture by segregation. These differ, however, from each other in that the former imagines a cycle of such changes, the latter a single series.

No debemos, a pesar de no ser más que hombres, limitarnos, como quieren algunos, a los conocimientos y sentimientos puramente humanos: ni reducirnos, mortales como somos, a una condición mortal; es preciso, por lo contrario, que en cuanto de nosotros dependa nos desatemos de los lazos de la condición mortal, y hagamos lo posible por vivir conforme a lo mejor que hay en nosotros.