Quote collection
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"[Aristotle] was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato.... He seceded from Plato while he was still alive; so that they tell a story that [Plato] said, " Aristotle has kicked us off, just as chickens do their mother after they have been hatched."
"Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?"
"The ludicrous state of solid geometry made me pass over this branch."
"The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of bad men, and, growing like them, to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad."
"May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ."
"By the golden chain Homer meant nothing else than the sun."
"The tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price."
"And tell him it's quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows; but that he should blame, not the philosophers, but those who fail to make use of them."
"As a breath of wind or some echo rebounds from smooth, hard surfaces and returns to the source from which it issued, so the stream of beauty passes back into its possessor through his eyes, which is its natural route to the soul; arriving there and setting him all aflutter, it waters the passages of the feathers and causes the wings to grow, and fills the soul of the loved one in his turn with love."
"Shall we not, then, lay down a law, in the first place, that boys shall abstain altogether from wine till their eighteenth year, thereby teaching that it is wrong to add fire to fire, as through a funnel, pouring it into their body and soul before they proceed to the labor of life, thus exercising a caution as to the maddening habits of youth."
"Violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort-they are reliefs of pain."
"From all wild beasts, a child is the most difficult to handle."
"Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done."
"He seemeth to be most ignorant that trusteth most to his wit."
"Much sleep is not required by nature, either for our souls or bodies, or for the action in which they are concerned."
"For though a man should be a complete unbeliever in the being of gods; if he also has a native uprightness of temper, such persons will detest evil in men; their repugnance to wrong disinclines them to commit wrongful acts; they shun the unrighteous and are drawn to the upright."
"I take it that our state, having been founded and built up on the right lines, is good in the complete sense of the word."
"We ought to live sacrificing, and singing, and dancing."
"That makes me think, my friend, as I have often done before, how natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers. Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen."
"Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality."