Aristotle
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"Aristotle" was a Greeks/Greek philosopher and scientist born in the Macedonia (ancient kingdom)/Macedonian city of Stagira (ancient city)/Stagira, Chalkidiki/Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle)/Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. At eighteen, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (Circa/c. ). His writings cover many subjectsand constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great starting from . According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "Aristotle was the first genuine scientist in history ... [and] every scientist is in his debt."

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

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

We must as second best...take the least of the evils.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

Evil draws men together.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Education is the best provision for old age.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

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 the government to the utmost.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

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

Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.

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

In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.

To give money is an easy matter and in any man's power. But to decide to whom to give it, and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in everyman's power nor an easy matter.

A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

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.

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.

It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.

To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

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

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.

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

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

One swallow does not make a summer.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.

A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies.

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.

The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.

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.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end.

Wit is educated insolence.

Happiness is a state of activity.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Law is mind without reason.

Evil brings men together.

The Pythagorean ... having been brought up in the study of mathematics, thought that things are numbers ... and that the whole cosmos is a scale and a number.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way... you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

They should rule who are able to rule best.

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

Hope is a waking dream.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.

To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

We make war that we may live in peace.

A friend is a second self.

It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

To perceive is to suffer.

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.

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

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Nature does nothing uselessly.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.

Well begun is half done.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

To love someone is to identify with them.