The Aristotle quotes on this page are all inspirational words of wisdom from the Philosopher of Ancient Greece.
Born in 384BC to parents from medical families, his father (Nicomachus) was the court physician to King Amyntus III of Macedonia. When Aristotle was seventeen he was sent to Athens to study at Plato’s Academy. He remained there for twenty years, as a student and then teacher, leaving soon after Plato died in 347BC. For the following five years he researched marine biology at Asia Minor. He also married and had a daughter during this time. In 342BC Aristotle went to Macedonia to tutor Alexander, the son of King Philip II, who was later to become Alexander The Great. In 335BC, aged fifty, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his own school at The Lyceum. Aristotle liked to walk as he taught so his followers were called the Peripatetics (ancient Greek word meaning walking about) even for hundreds of years after his death in 322BC. Aristotle was one of the top three most important Greek philosophers (with Plato and Socrates) and is considered to be one the greatest intellectual figures of Western history as along with philosophy, he covered most of the sciences and many of the arts.
Aristotle Quotes: A
A friend is a second self, so that our consciousness of a friend’s existence, makes us more fully conscious of our own existence.
All men by nature desire knowledge.
All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.
Quotes: C
Change in all things is… sweet.
Choice, not chance… determines your destiny.
Aristotle Quotes: E
Educating the mind, without educating the heart, is no education at all.
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Education is the best provision for old age.
Quotes: F
For the things we have to learn before we can do them… we learn by doing them!
Quotes: G
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
Aristotle Quotes: H
Happiness depends upon… ourselves.
Happiness is a quality of the Soul, not a function of one’s material circumstances.
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
He who cannot be a good follower, cannot be a good leader.
Hope is… a waking dream.
Quotes: I
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is… Nature’s way.
If things do not turn out as we wish… we should wish for them as they turn out.
If you would understand anything… observe its beginning and its development.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvellous.
Intuition is the source of scientific knowledge.
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the Light.
It is likely that unlikely things should happen.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Quotes: K
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Quotes: L
Love is composed of a single Soul inhabiting two bodies.
Quotes: M
Memory is the scribe of the Soul.
Men who do just and temperate acts are… just and temperate.
Quotes: N
Nature does nothing without purpose.
Quotes: P
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Quotes: Q
Quality is not an act… it is a habit.
Aristotle Quotes: T
The beauty of the Soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
The more you know… The more you know you don’t know!
The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
The pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Those that know… Do.
Those that understand… Teach.
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
To lead an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd.
Aristotle Quotes: W
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an action, but a habit.
We become brave by doing brave acts.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
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.
We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends behave to us.
Well begun is… half done.
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross…
there lies your vocation.
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
Quotes: Y
Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because life is sweet and they are growing.
