"Man is the metre of all things, the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms."
Read quote
5 likes
Quote collection
Aristotle quotes (page 61 of 64)
1.3K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Laws, when good, should be supreme; and that the magistrate or magistrates should regulate those matters only on which the laws are unable to speak with precision owing to the difficulty of any general principle embracing all particulars."
Read quote
5 likes
"Indeed, we may go further and assert that anyone who does not delight in fine actions is not even a good man."
Read quote
5 likes
"The art of wealth-getting which consists in household management, on the one hand, has a limit; the unlimited acquisition of wealth is not its business. And therefore, in one point of view, all riches must have a limit; nevertheless, as a matter of fact, we find the opposite to be the case; for all getters of wealth increase their hard coin without limit."
Read quote
5 likes
"Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice."
Read quote
5 likes
"I call that law universal, which is conformable merely to dictates of nature; for there does exist naturally an universal sense of right and wrong, which, in a certain degree, all intuitively divine, even should no intercourse with each other, nor any compact have existed."
Read quote
5 likes
"Nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office."
Read quote
5 likes
"That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing."
Read quote
5 likes
"We do not know a truth without knowing its cause."
Read quote
5 likes
"So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean."
Read quote
5 likes
"In justice is all virtues found in sum."
Read quote
5 likes
"Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by [Moral] Virtue."
Read quote
5 likes
"Now what is just and right is to be interpreted in the sense of 'what is equal'; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue."
Read quote
5 likes
"The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws."
Read quote
5 likes
"[the virtues] cannot exist without Prudence. A proof of this is that everyone, even at the present day, in defining Virtue, after saying what disposition it is [i.e. moral virtue] and specifying the things with which it is concerned, adds that it is a disposition determined by the right principle; and the right principle is the principle determined by Prudence."
Read quote
5 likes
"So we must lay it down that the association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions. Those who contribute most to this kind of association are for that very reason entitled to a larger share in the state than those who, though they may be equal or even superior in free birth and in family, are inferior in the virtue that belongs to a citizen. Similarly they are entitled to a larger share than those who are superior in riches but inferior in virtue."
Read quote
5 likes
"The same things are best both for individuals and for states, and these are the things which the legislator ought to implant in the minds of his citizens."
Read quote
5 likes
"Let us be well persuaded that everyone of us possesses happiness in proportion to his virtue and wisdom, and according as he acts in obedience to their suggestion."
Read quote
5 likes
"Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand."
Read quote
5 likes
"The high-minded man is fond of conferring benefits, but it shames him to receive them."
Read quote
5 likes