There are not three rainbows, and even less so more, because the second is already very faint; so that the third refraction would be excessively weak [...].
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Aristote
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition.
[...] the rainbow is never a complete circle.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
[The rainbow] also occurs, but rarely, at night by the effect of the moon. This is because [the moon] [...] is too weak to dominate the air.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
The dry exhalation, by burning materials, produces all minerals [...]. The vaporous exhalation produces metals, which are either fusible or ductile, such as iron, gold, bronze.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
This is why all these bodies are combustible and all have earth in them [...]; gold alone is incombustible by fire.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
As we have established that there are four causes of the elements, [...] two are active, the hot and the cold, and [...] two are passive, the dry and the moist.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Absolute generation has for its most ordinary contrary putrefaction. Indeed, all natural destruction is a progression towards this state [...].
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Thus all things putrefy, except for fire; earth, water, air putrefy; for all these things are matter and food for fire.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
During cold periods, there is less putrefaction than during hot ones.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
sea water, if divided into portions, putrefies very quickly, whereas in its total mass it does not putrefy.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
And animals are born in putrefied things, because the natural heat that is released recomposes and gathers the secreted and divided parts.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Art only imitates nature in this; for the digestion of food in the bodies of animals is quite analogous to boiling [...].
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
We call hard that which does not yield inward at its surface, and soft that which yields without dispersing all around.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
[...] we determine hardness and softness in an absolute way in relation to touch; touch becomes for us a sort of mean measure [...].
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
The flame is [...] air, or burning smoke.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
It is the all-or-nothing changes that awaken human intelligence and prevent it from falling asleep in immobility.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Where men are not masters of their own persons, they care little for military training, but only to appear unfit for military service.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
All the activity and courage they display benefits their masters [...] they themselves reap no fruit but peril and death.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Among men who are subject to royalty, courage is necessarily lacking. Their soul is enslaved [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
When one obeys only one's own laws [...] one throws oneself wholeheartedly into all hazards, because one reaps the fruit of victory for oneself.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[...] there is neither multitude nor wealth that does not yield to courage...
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[The Greek race] possesses both intelligence and courage. It knows how to maintain its independence and form very good governments, capable, if it were united in a single state, of conquering the universe.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The first glance cast upon nature [...] shows us first its unity; it is only later [...] that we distinguish diverse parts in this whole.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
God has neither the vices nor the form of mortals and miserable humans who make him in their image.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The very nature of God is to dominate everything and to be dominated by no one.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
There is no mortal who has been able to see clearly into these depths; there will be none who can ever know thoroughly what the Gods and the universe are [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Being cannot come from being; for then, it would precede itself, which is contradictory. [...] nor could it come from nothingness.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Only being exists and is real; all the things whose existence our senses affirm are but more or less deceptive and fleeting appearances.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
We descend from Greece, and without it we would not be what we are.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Human intelligence progresses very slowly [...] and it is good for it to sometimes look back, to see where it started from, and to better guide its steps into the future.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The soul does not exist without the body, and [...] is not a body. No, it is not a body, it is something of the body; and that is why it is in the body [...].
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The perfect reality, the entelechy of each thing, is produced naturally only in that which is in potentiality, and in the matter which is proper to receive it.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The faculties of the soul [...] are: nutrition, appetite, sensation, locomotion, thought.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Desire is the appetite for that which gives pleasure.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
[For animate beings], the term that follows contains [...] in potentiality, the term that precedes it; [...] nutrition within sensation.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Without touch, none of the other senses exist. But touch can exist without the others.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The most natural act for living beings [...] is to produce another being like themselves [...] in order to partake of the eternal and the divine as much as they can.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The soul is the cause and principle of the living body [...] it is the very principle from which movement comes, that for the sake of which it occurs, and [...] the essence of animate bodies.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
For living beings, to live is to be; and the cause and principle of all this is the soul.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
All bodies formed by nature are the instruments of the soul.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
One can think spontaneously, when one wants to; but one cannot feel spontaneously, for there must of necessity be something to feel.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
[Man], in respect to touch, is far superior to [all animals], which also makes him the most intelligent of animals.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The sense is that which receives sensible forms without the matter, as wax receives the impression of the ring without the iron or gold.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Excessive qualities in sensible things destroy the sense organs. If the movement is stronger than the organ, the relation is destroyed.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Why do plants not feel [...]? The cause is that they have neither [...] a principle capable of receiving the forms of sensible things, but are affected with the matter.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
A statement made in convoluted and contradictory terms takes on the appearance of a logical argument [...] and this appearance is due to the form of the expression.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Since there is often an appearance of identity in what is not identical, one must use the meaning from which the most advantage can be derived.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It would be strange if two good things were to become one bad thing.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A [...] tactic is to establish or overturn an argument through exaggeration.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The listener reasons falsely about the existence or non-existence of the fact in question, which has not been demonstrated to them.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Not every vicious man is a thief.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
An individual will have an elegant attire and take nightly walks, one might believe he is a libertine, because all this is what libertines do.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Certain conditions are inherent to those who appear happy [...], but what makes the difference is the 'how'.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A [tactic] consists of presenting as a cause that which is not a cause. Such as, for example, a fact that occurred at the same time or immediately after.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[One] saw in [someone's] policy the cause of all evils, for it was immediately after the triumph of that policy that war broke out.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If one were to claim that striking free men is an outrage. This is not always true, but only when one initiates an unjust assault.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One might perhaps readily say that this is probable: that many improbable things happen to mortals.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Such a fact occurs against probability, so that even what is against probability becomes probable.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
This is the way to ensure the superiority of the weaker argument.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It was a lie and not a truth, but an apparent probability that is found in no art except the art of oratory and that of controversy.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It should not be ignored that each genre accommodates a different kind of elocution.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One does not use the same [elocution] in written speech as in speech delivered in public.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must possess this double talent: [...] not being reduced to silence when one wishes to communicate with others.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Written elocution is that which has the most precision; that of debates lends itself best to action.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Written speeches seem thin in debates, and those of orators [...] seem like the works of apprentices in the hands of readers.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Productions intended for action, when stripped of their performance, no longer fulfill their function and appear mediocre.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must vary the expressions to say the same thing, which helps to bring about dramatic effects.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
In sentences lacking conjunctions [...] it seems that one says several things at the same moment.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The elocution proper to public speeches is very much like a painting; [...] the farther one must stand to contemplate it.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[In a speech as in a painting], neglected and imperfect details take on the appearance of precision.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Where there is the most action, there will be the least precision.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Demonstrative elocution is, more than any other, proper to written discourse, for it is made to be read.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Why demand that elocution be pleasant [...] rather than temperance or generosity or some other moral merit?
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If [elocution] is diffuse, it will lack clarity; and likewise, if it is too concise.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[A good elocution becomes] pleasant, if one makes a happy mixture of language, [...] of rhythm, and of well-introduced persuasive arguments.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If the past does not possess all truth, it has portions of truth that we must take ready-made from it. This is the very condition of our progress [...].
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
One must know the past on pain of not knowing oneself.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
To more surely increase this common treasure of humanity, it is good to know what it contains.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Philosophy [...] is not a completed science, it is a science in the making; it is not organized.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
To sense is not an act analogous to that by which one learns what one does not know; it is rather an act analogous to that by which one contemplates what one already knows.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
A stronger movement absorbs a weaker one; [...] one may have things right before one's eyes, yet not see them when the mind is strongly occupied with some other object.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
One cannot sense two things at once [...] if they are unequal, it is the stronger one alone that is sensed, and then one no longer senses both things.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The nature of flavors is better known to us than that of odors; this is because the sense of smell in man is not very delicate.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Colors that can be expressed by proportional numbers [...] seem to be the most pleasing colors, such as purple, scarlet [...].
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Indirectly, it is hearing that renders the greatest services to thought, since it is language that is the cause of man's learning [...].
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The perception of [...] odors that are pleasant in themselves, those of flowers, for example [...] is an exclusive privilege of man.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
One may ask whether, since every body is infinitely divisible, the sensory impressions that bodies cause in us are also divisible in this way.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
What unity could a white color and a high-pitched sound form? One cannot sense two things of this kind at the same time.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Will it [philosophy] be less rich for knowing what precisely constitutes its assured heritage? Will it be less strong for inheriting the strength of its ancestors?
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
There is no more dryness without moisture than there is moisture without dryness; for neither of these elements can nourish animals in isolation: only their mixture is nutritious.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
To work is still better than to govern and command, where the exercise of power does not bring great profits; for men in general prefer money to honors.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is always good for man to be held in check [...], for the unlimited independence of the individual will cannot be a barrier against the vices that each of us carries within.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Men in general prefer a life without discipline to a wise and orderly one.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
For the legislator [...], to institute a government is neither the only nor the greatest difficulty; it is rather knowing how to make it last.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Giving [...] aid to poverty is like trying to fill a bottomless barrel.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The worse political constitutions are, the more precautions they require.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It would be quite useless to render justice if the sentences were not to be carried out; and civil society is no more possible without the execution of judgments than without the justice that renders them.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
As soon as one does not obtain in political power all that one believes one deserves, one resorts to a revolution.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Inequality is always [...] the cause of revolutions, when nothing compensates those it affects.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Democracy is more stable and less subject to upheavals than oligarchy.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Citizens rise up, sometimes out of a desire for equality [...], sometimes out of a desire for inequality and political predominance.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In general, divisions that break out among the leading citizens extend to the entire state, which soon ends up taking part in them.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The only stable constitution is that which grants equality in proportion to merit, and which knows how to guarantee the rights of all citizens.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Revolutions proceed sometimes by violence, sometimes by cunning.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In a democracy, revolutions are born above all from the turbulence of demagogues.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Having lived for many years, [...] they affirm nothing, and in all things, they act less than is necessary.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
They believe, they do not know; [...] they express themselves on everything in this way, and on nothing with assurance.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
They are prone to suspicion because of their lack of trust, and they lack trust because they have experience.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
They love as if they will one day hate, and hate as if they will one day love.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Nothing great, nothing superior excites their desires, which are entirely focused on the necessities of life.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[They] know from experience that it is difficult to acquire and easy to lose.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Fear is a kind of cooling.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One desires above all what is lacking.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The useful is a good for a particular person, while the beautiful (the moral) is an absolute good.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Caring less for what is beautiful than for what is useful, they take little account of opinion.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Hope relates to the future, and memory to the past.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
They live more by memory than by hope; [...] Hence their loquacity.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Their angers are sharp, but not strong.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Calculation is a matter of self-interest, and moral character a matter of virtue.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A penchant for complaining is the opposite of a character that loves to laugh.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One can refute [an argument] either by making a counter-syllogism or by raising an objection.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Syllogisms are drawn from probabilities; yet many of these probabilities may seem to contradict one another.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Speaking generally, one might say that all need is a bad thing.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If the good man helps all his friends, it does not follow that the wicked man harms his own.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Even if those who are harmed always feel resentment, it does not mean that those who are treated well always feel friendship.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A refutation can be merely apparent [...]. One does not resolve an argument by objecting that it is not probable, but by objecting that it is not a necessary consequence.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must judge not only by necessary consequences, but also by probability; and this is what is called judging according to one's conscience.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is not enough to present a refutation based on the lack of a necessary consequence; one must resolve it by alleging that there is no probability.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
An objection can be made in two ways: either by considering the time, or by considering the facts.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If an event occurs several times, it will only become more probable.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If one has a single counter-example, the refutation is based on the fact that the event is not necessary, or that it has occurred several times in a different way.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If it has occurred several times under the same conditions, one must contradict by alleging that the current case is not similar, or that the conditions differ.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If it is manifest that a fact exists and there is material proof, it becomes impossible to refute it, for everything then becomes evident through demonstration.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Is epic imitation superior to tragic imitation? One may well ask.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
If it is the least vulgar that has the advantage, [...] it is quite clear that an imitation which is addressed to all and sundry is a vulgar one.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The actor, seeing that the audience remains unmoved if he himself does not overdo it, engages in a great deal of movement.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It is claimed that [the epic] is addressed to people of sound judgment, [...] while tragedy is addressed to spectators of inferior taste.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The charge [of vulgarity] does not concern the poetic art, but rather the art of the actor.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
One must not disapprove of all movement, [...] it is not the dance itself, but a poorly executed dance which is open to criticism.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Tragedy, even without movement, fulfills its proper function [...]; for from the mere reading, one can see what its quality is.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[Tragedy] has at its disposal [...] music and spectacle, by which the pleasures are made as vivid as possible.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
What is more concentrated gives more pleasure than what is spread over a long period of time.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
From any given epic imitation, several tragedies can be made.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
If only one story is treated in the epic, [...] the work seems shortened, or else [...] it seems diluted.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The structure of these poems is as perfect as possible, and they are the imitation of a single action.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Tragedies do not provide just any pleasure, but the one we have mentioned [the pleasure proper to tragedy].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[Tragedy], by better achieving its goal, could be better than the epic.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
To account for the generation and destruction of things that are born and die naturally, we must [...] consider their causes and their relations separately.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
We must examine whether the nature of generation and that of alteration are the same, or if they are distinct in reality, as they are by the names that designate them.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Those who claim that the universe is a uniform whole [...] must necessarily regard generation as a simple alteration.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The subject of phenomena always remains one and the same; and it is precisely of such a subject that one can say it undergoes an alteration.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
When one recognizes several kinds of substances, [...] the generation and destruction of things occur as a result of the combination and separation of elements.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
There is nothing of a constant nature, and everything is but mingling and separation.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Certain philosophers] claim that all bodies are primitively composed of indivisibles or atoms, which are infinite in number and in their forms.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Is it not evident that one must always suppose the existence of a single, unique matter for the contraries?
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
There must be only one element, and one and the same matter, for all the qualities that change into one another.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[...] if water cannot come from fire, nor earth from water, it follows that black can no more come from white, nor the hard from the soft.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Things are separated from an elementary unity by certain differences and by certain modifications.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Insofar as one supposes, as matter, a principle from which earth and fire emerge [...], there is then only one single and unique element.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The sun is everywhere white and full of heat; everywhere the rain extends its veil and its coldness.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
In every tragedy, there is the complication and the unraveling.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[The] complication [is] that which takes place [...] up to the part [...] where one passes from misfortune to happiness, or from happiness to misfortune.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Many tragic poets weave the complication well, and the unraveling badly; but both must win applause.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
One must apply oneself [...] to possessing all these resources, or if not, at least the most important ones [...], especially today when poets are violently attacked.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
As there have been good poets for each element, it is required [of a poet] that he be superior to each of those who had a particular strength.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
One must [...] not make a tragedy into an epic composition.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
In an epic composition, the length of the work allows each part to receive its proper magnitude; but in dramatic actions, the result is contrary to expectation.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[An ending is tragic and pleases] when the clever, but perverse man has been deceived [...] and the brave, but unjust man has been vanquished.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It is probable that many things should happen contrary to probability.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The chorus, one must establish it as one of the characters, an integral part of the whole, and make it contribute to the action [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
What difference is there between singing interludes and fitting into a tragedy a passage [...] borrowed from some other play?
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[One judges] whether a tragedy is similar or different [...] by the inherent resemblance in the complication and the unraveling.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Not everything contiguous is continuous, whereas everything continuous is contiguous.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Translation can hardly be said except of objects that move involuntarily from one place to another, as happens with inanimate things.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The genus must always be broader than the differentia, and it must not partake of the differentia.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
If none of the differentiae of the genus is attributable to the given species, the genus will not be attributed to it either.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The soul is endowed with life, but no number can live; therefore, the soul is not a species of number.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Every genus is properly attributed to its species; however, harmony is attributed not properly, but only metaphorically, to prudence.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is necessary that contraries be in the same genus, if there is no contrary to the genus.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
We only call wicked those who are so voluntarily.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
All power is something to be desired: even the powers for evil are desirable, and this is why we say that God and the virtuous man possess them.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is not possible for a thing to remain the same if it is completely changed in species.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
A thing repeated several times bothers the listener, and the necessary result is that the proposition becomes obscure.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
One never gives the property except to make the thing better known.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The property must not show the essence.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is impossible for the same thing to be the property of several things.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Since, among relatives, some are necessarily in the things [...] to which they are said to relate, [...] others [...] are not necessarily in the things to which they are relatives.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The privilege and superiority of man, endowed with reflection and reminiscence.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Parts common to all animals: one to take in food, the other to expel its excretion.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Touch is the only sense that is common to all animals.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Hairy animals are viviparous.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Feet are always in even numbers.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Method to follow in the history of animals: one must begin with the study of man, who is the best known to us of all.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Man alone has one [a face].
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
The forehead and its various shapes indicate the scope of intelligence.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
The eyebrows give indications of character.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Moral indications that can be drawn from the eyes.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
The ear is immobile only in man.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
The right [parts] are generally stronger.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
[...] up, down, front and back, right and left correspond in man to these positions in the universe; a privilege of man.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Touch is the most developed sense [in man], then taste; man's inferiority in the other senses.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
Man is the animal with the most developed encephalon.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Source: History of Animals
One must speak Greek.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must use specific terms, not overly broad ones.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must avoid ambiguous terms; [...] unless one prefers the opposite, which is what people do when they have nothing to say but want to appear to be saying something.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[...] a great circumlocution is deceptive, and the audience finds themselves in the position of the many who go to soothsayers.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
When [soothsayers] pronounce ambiguous oracles, people accept their advice.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Croesus, by crossing the Halys, will destroy a great empire.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is precisely to risk a less serious error that soothsayers state things in generalities.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[...] soothsayers do not add the determination of time in their answers.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is absolutely necessary to read what is written well, and to pronounce it well, which amounts to the same thing.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[...] punctuation [...] is a whole task, because one cannot see to which clause the conjunction belongs.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
This reason which exists always men are incapable of understanding.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
There is obscurity when you speak of something you have not announced beforehand, and then insert a long aside.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Most often, revolutions in aristocracies happen without being noticed and through imperceptible destruction.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It can be said in general of all governments that they succumb sometimes to internal causes of destruction, and sometimes to external ones [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In all well-constituted States, the first care [...] is not to depart from the law in any way [...]. Illegality secretly undermines the State.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is solely the overly prolonged duration of power that leads to tyranny in oligarchic and democratic States.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
States are preserved, not only because the causes of ruin are distant, but [...] because they are imminent; fear then causes public affairs to be handled with renewed solicitude.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
[...] power is corrupting, and not all men are capable of handling prosperity.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
A capital objective in any State: it is necessary [...] that public offices never enrich those who hold them.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The exercise of supreme functions requires [...] three qualities: a sincere attachment to the constitution, a great capacity for affairs, and [...] a virtue and justice analogous [...] to the principle on which [the government] is founded.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Above all, one must be careful not to neglect what all corrupt governments neglect today: moderation and measure in all things.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In democracies where the crowd can sovereignly make the laws, the demagogues, by their continual attacks against the rich, always divide the city into two camps.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The most important point [...] for the stability of States [...] is to conform education to the very principle of the constitution.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Constant obedience to the constitution must not appear to the citizens as slavery; on the contrary, they must find in it safeguard and happiness.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Royalty [...] is maintained by moderation. The less extensive its sovereign powers, the more chance it has of lasting in its entirety.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The characteristic of the tyrant is to reject all that bears a proud and free soul; for he believes himself alone capable of possessing these high qualities.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Anger is even more active than hatred, because it conspires with all the more ardor as passion does not reflect.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
There are four primary forces in nature: cold, hot, dry, and wet, which are localized in four elements: earth and fire, air and water.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Two of these forces are primarily active, cold and heat; two are passive, dry and wet. By perpetually modifying themselves, these forces [...] form all the substances we can observe.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Indeed, everything follows, everything is linked, everything is tightly intertwined in the philosopher's immense system; but if he often has the depths of the nature he studies, he sometimes also has its entanglements.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
The greatest application of mind is needed to understand Aristotle well; but it would not be showing enough caution [...] to allow oneself to remove an entire book from a work, when the author has taken care to show us himself by what links he attaches it.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
To suppose a second draft on such a frivolous motive is to multiply beings without the slightest necessity.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
[Meteorology] includes all those phenomena which, although occurring according to natural laws, nevertheless have less regular conditions than those of the primary element of bodies.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Among these [meteorological] phenomena, some are inexplicable to us; others are accessible to us to a certain extent.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
It is absolutely necessary that this world be connected without discontinuity [...] to the higher revolutions, so that its entire powerful order is governed by these revolutions.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
It is not once, twice, or even a small number of times that the same opinions periodically reappear in humanity; it is an infinite number of times.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
The earth being heated by the sun, the exhalation must necessarily be [...] twofold: one which comes from what is moist [...], is like vapor; the second which comes from the earth itself [...], is like smoke.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
As for things that escape our senses, we believe we have demonstrated them sufficiently [...] when we have succeeded in showing that they are possible.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Winds form in the marshy places of the earth, and they do not blow above the highest mountains.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
What should make us believe that the composition of comets is fiery is that their appearance most often announces winds and droughts.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Fog is the residue of the conversion of a cloud into water; and that is why it announces fair weather rather than rain; for fog is like a kind of unformed cloud.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Dew is produced in serene weather and calm places [...]. What proves that it is produced because the vapor has not been raised very high is that one never sees frost on the mountains.
c. 334 BC
Source: Meteorology
Sovereignty must belong to laws founded on reason, and the magistrate [...] should only be sovereign where the law has been unable to decide.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Laws follow governments; bad or good, just or unjust, as they are themselves.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The good in politics is justice; in other words, the general utility.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It remains to determine to what equality applies and to what inequality applies; difficult questions that constitute political philosophy.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The best instruments will not be given to the noblest individuals, [...] but the most perfect instrument must be given to the artist who knows how to use it most perfectly.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The law is dispassionate; every human soul, on the contrary, is necessarily passionate.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
To ask for the sovereignty of the law is to ask that reason reign with the laws; to ask for the sovereignty of a king is to make man and beast sovereign.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Happiness can never follow vice; the state, no more than man, succeeds only on the condition of virtue and wisdom.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is very wrong to prefer inaction to work; for happiness is only found in activity, and just and wise men always have honorable ends in their actions.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Between similar creatures, there is equity and justice only in reciprocity [...]. Inequality among equals, disparity among peers are facts contrary to nature.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The law is the establishment of a certain order; good laws necessarily produce good order; but order is not possible in too great a multitude.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The true legislator will only think of giving to the entire city, to the diverse individuals who compose it, [...] the share of virtue and happiness that can belong to them.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The supreme goal of life is necessarily the same for the individual man as for men united and for the State in general.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
To do great things, one must prevail over one's fellows as much as man prevails over woman, the father over children, the master over the slave.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Happiness is always in proportion to virtue and wisdom, and to submission to their laws, taking as witness [...] God himself, whose supreme felicity does not depend on external goods.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Wherever education has been neglected, the State has suffered a fatal blow.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Democratic customs preserve democracy; oligarchic ones preserve oligarchy; and the purer the customs, the stronger the State.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is a grave error to believe that each citizen is his own master; they all belong to the State, since they are all its elements [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
We do not even know whether we should be more concerned with training the intellect or training the heart.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The great difference here consists in the intention that determines the work or the study.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
[Labors] for which a wage is the price [...] rob the mind of all activity and all elevation.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Nature [...] demands of us not only a commendable use of our activity, but also a noble use of our leisure.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
If both work and rest are necessary, the latter [rest] is undoubtedly preferable.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Happiness is precisely the goal where one rests, far from all worry, in the bosom of pleasure.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
This exclusive preoccupation with ideas of utility befits neither noble souls nor free men.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
To bravely face danger is the lot neither of a wolf nor of a wild beast; it is the exclusive lot of the courageous man.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Virtue consists precisely in knowing how to enjoy, love, and hate as reason demands.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is [...] impossible not to recognize the moral power of music; and since this power is very real, it is necessary to include music in the education of children.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Each person finds pleasure only in that which corresponds to their nature.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In musical education, three things are essentially required: first, to avoid all excess; second, to do what is possible; and finally, what is fitting.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Justice is said to be a kind of complete virtue.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Justice which relates to others [...] it is not possible [...] to be just for oneself alone.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Justice that is relative to others is, to put it in a single word, equity, equality; the unjust is the unequal.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Justice is a mean between excess and deficiency, between too much and too little.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The just man is one who, in his relations with others, wants only equality.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is [...] proportional that he who has worked much should receive much in wages; and that he who has worked little should receive little.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is justice that preserves societies; and the just is identical with the proportional.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Among the things that are called just, some are so by nature; others are so only by law.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The just according to nature is undoubtedly superior to the just according to the law, which is made by men.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
An act is just when one acts with considered intention and complete freedom.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
When without knowing it [...] one does something unjust, one is not truly unjust; one is simply unfortunate.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
When ignorance is the direct cause of the action one has committed, [...] one is not guilty.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
But when, on the contrary, one is the cause of this ignorance oneself [...] then one is guilty; and it is with reason that one is [...] responsible.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
No one really wants to suffer injustice.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
One cannot be unjust towards oneself.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Since rhetoric's object is a judgment, it is necessary not only to consider the speech, but also to put the listener in a certain disposition.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
To bring conviction, it is very important to know in what light the speaker appears and in what disposition the listeners are.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We do not see things in the same light when we love and when we are animated by hatred; they are either completely different, or of a very different importance.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
To one who loves, the person in question seems to have committed no injustice, or only a slight one. For one who hates, it is the opposite.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
For one who feels desire or hope, if the thing to come is pleasant, it seems to him that it must be accomplished. For one who is without passion, it is the opposite.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Three things inspire confidence in a speaker, independently of demonstrations: good sense, virtue, and benevolence.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
For lack of good sense, one does not express a sound opinion; and if one does, out of perversity, one does not say what seems true.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A speaker may have good sense and fairness, but lack benevolence, and thus not give the best advice, even while knowing the subject.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Necessarily, one who seems to unite [good sense, virtue, and benevolence] will have the confidence of his listeners.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Passion is that which, by modifying us, produces differences in our judgments and is followed by pain and pleasure.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
For each passion, three things must be distinguished: people's state of mind, the persons they target, and the motive for their passion.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If one of these points of view [the state of mind, the target, the motive] is neglected, it is impossible to employ passion as a rhetorical device.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Arguments must make it possible to exhort and dissuade, to blame and praise, to accuse and defend.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
To feel is to suffer; but it is also to act.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Why do not all beings have a soul [...]?
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The elements [...] resemble matter, whereas it is the soul or the form that unites them and makes them a whole.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
[The intellect] seems to be as the eternal is isolated from the perishable.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
In the organized being, form is much more essential than matter.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Matter is a simple potentiality. [...] The species is perfect reality, entelechy.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The body is the matter, and the soul is the form, just as, in a seal, the wax is the matter, and the impression [...] is the form that characterizes it.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Without nutrition, no sensibility.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Regarding touch, [man] is far superior to all other animals. [...] Which also makes him the most intelligent of animals.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The imagination [...] cannot occur without sensation.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
One can think spontaneously whenever one wants, but to feel, the presence of the object is absolutely necessary.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The intellect [...] is in potentiality what the objects are in reality.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
[The intellect is like] a tablet on which nothing is written.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The excessive qualities [of sensible objects] destroy the sense organs.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
In order to partake of the eternal and the divine [...], the aim of every being is to produce another being like itself.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Every noun is either a proper word, or a foreign word, or a metaphor, or an ornament, or a coined word, or a lengthened or shortened, or an altered one.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
I call a 'proper word' that which each people uses, a 'gloss' [...] that which is in use among other peoples.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The same word can be a proper word and a gloss, but not in the same country.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Metaphor is the transfer of a name of another nature, either from the genus to the species, or from the species to the genus, [...] or a transfer by analogy.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Yes, truly, Ulysses accomplished thousands of noble deeds. Thousands has the sense of a great number, and it is in this sense that this expression is used here.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
I say there is an analogy [...] when the second [term] is to the first as the fourth is to the third; for one will say the fourth in place of the second and the second in place of the fourth.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The cup is to Bacchus what the shield is to Mars. One will therefore say 'the shield, cup of Mars', and 'the cup, shield of Bacchus'.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
What the evening is to the day, old age is to life. One will therefore say: 'the evening, old age of the day,' and 'old age, evening of life'.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
For some [concepts], there is no established analogue; nevertheless, one will speak by analogy.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
To let the grain fall is to sow it; but to say letting the sun's light fall, there is no proper term. Now this idea [...] is like the word 'sow' in relation to the grain.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
One can use this mode of metaphor [...] by applying a foreign denomination to the object, and denying it some of its own qualities; as if one were to say of the shield [...] 'the cup without wine'.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The coined word is that which the poet places without it having been used by others.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The word is altered when a part of the uttered word is rejected and another is made arbitrarily.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The like cannot be affected by the like [...] it is naturally dissimilar and different bodies that have reciprocal action and passion upon one another.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Democritus maintains that] that which acts and that which is acted upon is fundamentally identical and similar, because he does not grant that different and entirely other things can be affected in any way by one another.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The cause of [the philosophers'] disagreements is that in a question where the whole subject had to be considered, they only considered [...] a single part of it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is quite true that what is entirely similar and differs in absolutely no way [...] can suffer absolutely nothing [...] from its like.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If it is possible for a thing to be affected [...] by its like, then it could also affect itself. [...] from this it would follow that nothing in the world would be imperishable or immovable.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Acting and being acted upon only occur in things that are contrary to each other, or that have a certain contrariety between them.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It necessarily follows that the agent and the patient must be similar and identical, at least in their genus, and that they are dissimilar and contrary in their species.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
A thing that acts assimilates to itself the thing that is acted upon by it; since [...] production is precisely the passage of a thing to its contrary.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It follows that necessarily that which is acted upon changes into that which acts; and only in this way will there be production resulting in the contrary.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Nothing prevents [...] the first mover, in the motion it imparts, from remaining itself unmoved [...] but the last term, in order to move, must always first be moved itself.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
In action, too, the first [agent] [...] is impassible; but the last [agent], in order to be able to act, must also itself first undergo some action.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
All active things that do not have their form in matter remain impassible; and all those that have their form in matter can be acted upon.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
As soon as the agent exists, [...] the patient undergoing the action becomes something; but when the qualities are fully acquired [...], the subject no longer has to become; it is already all that it should be.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The forms and ends of things are [...] qualities and states, whereas it is matter which, as matter, is entirely passive.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Fire has its heat in matter; and if heat were something separable from the matter of fire, it could not undergo or suffer anything.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Fear is a pain or disturbance caused by the idea of a future evil, whether destructive or distressing.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We do not dread what is still very far from us: thus everyone knows they must die; but, as it is not immediate, one does not think about it.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The signs that announce evils inspire dread, for what is frightening appears to us as very near; this is what constitutes peril.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The enmity and anger of people who have power over us are to be feared, for it is clear that they have both the power and the will to act.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[To be feared is] injustice that possesses power; for it is by intention that the unjust man is unjust.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Since many people are dominated by the lure of profit [...], it is a cause for fear to be at the mercy of another.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Men commit injustices almost as often as they have the power to do so.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Competitors pursuing the same goal that they cannot both achieve are to be feared, for one is always in conflict with them.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Among our rivals, it is not those who lose their temper [...], but those who are calm, dissembling, and treacherous [who are to be feared]; for one is never sure of being safe from them.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Everything formidable becomes even more so when, a mistake having been made, there is no way to repair it, or when the repair is not within our power.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
All events that, by striking or threatening others, inspire in us a feeling of pity are subjects of fear.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One does not believe oneself to be exposed to trials when one considers oneself in full prosperity; this is what makes one arrogant, disdainful, and reckless.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Fear makes us capable of making a decision, whereas no one deliberates any longer in a hopeless situation.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Confidence is the hope of salvation, accompanied by the idea that this salvation is within our reach, and that the things to be feared either do not exist or are far from us.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
There are two ways of being inaccessible to fear: either one has not gone through trials, or one has had the means to get through them.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If a thing has a property sometimes in mere potentiality, sometimes in reality, [...] it is clear that it will be affected more or less according to how strong that property is in it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
As long as a thing is homogeneous and one, it is impassive.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Not only does fire heat by contact, but it also heats at a distance; for the fire heats the air, and the air heats the body, because the air can, by its nature, both act and be acted upon.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If magnitude is not absolutely divisible [...], but there is something [...] that is indivisible within it, it would follow that there is no longer any magnitude that can be totally passive.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If every body is always divisible, it no longer matters whether the body is actually divided [...] or whether it is merely divisible.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Nothing that is impossible ever comes to be.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
What makes it quite absurd to maintain that action and passion occur [...] through the splitting of bodies, is that this theory suppresses and destroys alteration.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
We see that the same body, without ceasing to be continuous, is sometimes liquid, sometimes solidified, without undergoing this modification, neither by the division of its parts, nor by their combination.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The entire body is equally liquid, and sometimes it becomes entirely hard and solidifies.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
In this [atomist] system, there could no longer be either growth or decay of things.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
No body could have become larger if there is only a simple addition, and if it does not change itself entirely [...] as a result of some change that occurs within it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
From the moment a body can be divided at the points of contact [...], it can be regarded as divided, even before it is.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The republic of Athens [...] could aspire to absolute domination over the entire Greek race. It was this ambition that blinded and ruined it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Athens had nothing more to fear from anyone, except from itself, a kind of danger that states never feel, any more than does the pride of mere individuals.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is amidst civil dissensions, foreign war, [...] battles and perils of all kinds, [...] that we must place the humble and glorious cradle [of philosophy].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
What does Greek philosophy, the mother of our Western world, owe to Eastern science? [...] Did the Greek spirit borrow anything from the old spirit of the East?
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is a great simplicity [...] to imagine that one can deposit any art in books, [...] as if anything clear and solid ever came out of books.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Once written, a discourse rolls everywhere, into the hands of those who understand it as well as those for whom it is not intended. It does not even know to whom it should speak, with whom it should be silent.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[One must prefer] the living and animate discourse that resides in the intellect, of which the written discourse is but a pale simulacrum.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If we have lost so much of this venerable and fertile antiquity, it is solely the fault of men; it is not the fault of time.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Philosophy is] the disinterested idea of science. To observe in order to know, with no other goal than to understand the world in which we live, its phenomena, its origin, and its end.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Pythagoras said:] the highest goal of man is to contemplate in this universe all the beauties it offers us, and thus to deserve the title of philosopher.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Wisdom consists in knowing as much as one can about these divine, eternal, primitive, immutable phenomena; and philosophy is but the assiduous pursuit of this noble study.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
No, Greece owes nothing to anyone but herself; [...] in science, she was as new and as ingenious as in everything else.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
To tell the truth, philosophy was the only serious religion of the Hellenes.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Greece never had divine and revealed books. [...] It is from the absolute independence of philosophy in the Greek world that its greatness came.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Why was this small people, at a specific moment, [...] chosen to be the light and immortal guide of all peoples in the empire of the spirit? That is a secret of Providence.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Regarding interrogation, it is especially opportune to use it when the adversary has said the contrary, so that [...] an absurdity results.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
When the first point is evident, [...] one's second question should not be about an evident point, but should state the conclusion.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[It is opportune to question] when one is about to show that the adversary is saying contradictory or paradoxical things.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
When one can only answer [...] in a sophistic manner, [...] the result is that the listeners are confused and troubled.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is not possible to ask a great number of questions, because of the listener's weakness.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Therefore, one must compress the enthymemes as much as possible.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must respond to equivocations by establishing distinctions in an argument that is not too brief.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
To assertions that seem contradictory, one must immediately provide a solution [...] before the adversary follows up with a new question.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Did I do a bad thing there?] — Yes, [...] but because there was nothing better to do.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
I acted according to my conscience.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must not ask a question either after the conclusion or as a conclusion, unless the truth is fully in our favor.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must destroy the seriousness of one's adversaries with jest, and their jest with seriousness.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Certain] kinds of jests are suitable for a free man; others are not.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Irony has something more elevated than buffoonery.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Through irony, one makes a jest for one's own sake, while the buffoon is concerned with another.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The main condition [...] for being able to persuade and deliberate properly is to know all types of government and to distinguish the customs, laws, and interests of each.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Everyone obeys the consideration of utility; and there is utility in that which serves to save the State.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
As many types of government, so many types of authority.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Democracy is the government in which offices are distributed by lot; oligarchy, that in which authority depends on fortune; aristocracy, that in which it depends on education.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is to those who have constantly observed the laws that power belongs in an aristocratic government; for it is in them that one must see the best citizens.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must not be ignorant of the end of each form of government; for one always acts with a view to the proposed end.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The end of democracy is freedom; that of oligarchy, wealth; that of aristocracy, good education and laws; that of tyranny, the preservation of power.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must distinguish the customs, laws, and interests that relate to the end of each government, since the decision to be made will be made with a view to this end.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Proofs result not only from demonstration, but also from character.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We trust the speaker because of the qualities he appears to have: if we see in him merit, goodwill, or both.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We should possess knowledge of the moral character proper to each government; for the best way to persuade is to observe the customs of each type of government.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Character is revealed by the principle of action; and the principle of action relates to the end goal.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Eastern philosophy has not influenced ours; [...] we do not need to go back to it to know who we are and where we come from.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
With Greek philosophy, we connect to the past from which we emerged. [...] we must never forget that we are the children of Greece.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
From Thales [...] to us, there is only a difference of degree; we are all on the same path, uninterrupted for so many centuries [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
All origins are necessarily obscure; one is always ignorant of oneself at the beginning, and the tradition for these early times is uncertain [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
All the elements of intelligence must blossom before reflection; reflection, regular and systematic, appears only very late [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Homer is not only the greatest of poets; he is also the most philosophical. A country that produces such masterpieces so early is destined to later create all the wonders of science.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It has been said [...] that philosophy was born with Socrates. But Socrates, modest as he was, would not have accepted this glory; he knew that philosophy was already making its attempts before him.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Very populous nations have done a thousand times less than them [the Ionians].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
What decided this singular resolution was not faithfulness to one's word; it was simply self-interest.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
By an almost irresistible slope, the already considerable power [of an empire] had to seek to extend itself to the sea.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The oracles replied [...] that 'if Croesus went to war with the Persians, a great empire would be destroyed.' Which one? [...] The seers did not decide.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
They threw a block of iron into the sea, swearing not to return until that mass floated. But [...] the ordeal was too great; half of the emigrants [...] returned to Phocaea.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If the Persians had triumphed [at Marathon], what would have become of Western civilization? [...] Athens deserves eternal gratitude.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The first condition for defeating the barbarians was not to fear them.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Athens was to abuse the hegemony that had been spontaneously devolved to it; and from then on it gathered against itself the jealousies and hatreds that later led to the fratricidal war.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The dialectician has far more occasion to overthrow propositions than to establish them.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Those who maintain [...] that the wise man is the only rich man, the only noble, the only good man, [...] divert these words [...] from the meaning they have for the common person.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is easier to argue about a clear word than about an obscure one.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
To sense is to judge, which is the opposite of the sensationalist axiom that to judge is to sense.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
In philosophy, [...] a thing has not and cannot have more than one single definition.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
To know is to remember.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is impossible for contraries [...] to be in the same subject at the same time.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Ideas are within us.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Science comes only from the syllogism.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The act of thinking is instantaneous; science, on the contrary, is a disposition [...] that can be applied successively to several things.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
For all things aim at the good.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Prudence is preferable in old age, yet one needs it more when one is young.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
One must avoid illness more than shame.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Two things identical to a third are identical to each other.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Happiness and virtue are one.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
There are three things in the soul: passions, faculties, and dispositions. Virtue must be one of these three things.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Passions [...] are feelings that are usually inevitably followed by pain or pleasure.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Faculties are the inner powers that make us capable of feeling various passions.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Dispositions are the conditions that make us well or ill-disposed with regard to our feelings.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
If one gets angry with excessive ease, it is a bad disposition.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Not getting angry at all, even for things that can legitimately provoke our wrath, is also a bad disposition.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The middle disposition consists in not getting carried away too violently, nor being too insensitive.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
When we are thus disposed [with moderation], we are disposed as we should be.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Moderation, which gets angry only with reason, holds the middle ground between irritability and indifference.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
To pretend to have more than one has is boastfulness; to pretend to have less is dissimulation.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The middle ground between boastfulness and dissimulation is precisely truth and frankness.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Is a change from one being to another [...] a production? Is the change that takes place in magnitude an increase? [...] is the one that takes place in quality an alteration?
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The object moved in space changes its place entirely, whereas that which grows changes only as something that glides and extends; the subject remaining in place, its parts alone change location.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Matter is precisely that of which points and lines are the extremities; it can never exist without some property, nor without form.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Growth is but the development of a pre-existing magnitude [...]. This is why the object that grows must first have a certain magnitude.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
In an object that grows, it seems that all parts, without exception, increase. Likewise, in diminution, all parts of the object seem to become smaller and smaller.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Growth appears to take place because something joins the body; and decrease, because something leaves it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
When a thing is absolutely produced or perishes, it does not persist; but when it undergoes an alteration, or an increase, [...] this thing [...] remains and subsists the same.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
That which alters, as well as the principle of motion, is in the object that has grown and in the object that is altered; for it is in them that the moving principle is found.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
One must think of it as when one measures water with a measure that remains the same; the water that comes is other, and always other. It is in this same way that the matter of the flesh grows.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
One part flows away and another is added; and the addition takes place only to any given part of the figure and of the species.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is possible at the same time for the like to be increased by the like, and, in another sense, for it to be by the unlike.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Just as fire burns when it touches something combustible, so in the body that grows [...], the inner substance [...] makes real flesh [...] from the potential flesh that has approached it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The body is nourished as long as it lives and lasts, and even when it decays; but it does not grow unceasingly.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Fundamentally, nutrition is identical and merges with growth; but their being is different.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
This form, or this species without matter, is in matter like an immaterial power.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Those in their prime will have a moral character that holds the middle ground between the young and the old, cutting away the excess of both.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Audacity carried to excess is recklessness.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Mature men] are neither extremely audacious [...], nor too fearful, but in a good disposition of mind.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Mature men] do not trust the first person they meet; nor do they distrust everyone, but their judgments are in accordance with the truth.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Mature men] live neither for the beautiful alone, nor for the useful alone, but for both.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Mature men live] neither with parsimony nor with prodigality, but in a fitting measure.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
With regard to anger and desire, [mature men] are temperate with courage, and courageous with temperance.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Youth is brave, but intemperate.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Old age is temperate, but timid.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The advantageous qualities possessed separately by youth and old age, [mature men] unite them [...] in a just proportion.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The body is at its peak strength from the age of thirty to thirty-five, and the soul around the age of forty-nine.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must [...] construct dramatic fables [...] around a single, whole, and complete action, having a beginning, a middle, and an end.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[So that a fable], like a single and whole living creature, [...] produces a pleasure that is proper to it.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
One must avoid having compositions resemble histories.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[In histories] one must not present a single action, but a single chronological period.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[In history, the] events [...] have, according to the chances of fortune, a relation to all the others.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
In the succession of time, one event takes place after another without them sharing a common end.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Homer appears, in this respect, a divine, incomparable poet, for not undertaking to put the entire war into poetry, even though it had a beginning and an end.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[For the complete epic] would have been too extensive and difficult to grasp as a whole.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Even while giving it a moderate length, [one can make] a war that is too crowded with varied incidents.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[The poet] detaches a part of it and makes use of several episodes [...] upon which he elaborates his poetry.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Others base their poem on a single hero, within a single period; but the single action that forms its basis is divided into numerous parts.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The Iliad and the Odyssey each provide the subject for one or two tragedies.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[A badly composed epic, like] the Little Iliad, [provides the subject] for eight [tragedies], and even more.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind, whatever they do, always act in order to obtain that which they think good.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
To trace things to their origin and follow their development with care is the surest way to observe them well.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The State is a creation of nature, as were the first associations, of which it is the end; for the nature of a thing is its end.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Man is by nature a political animal, and he who by his nature is without a state [...] is either a bad man or above humanity.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
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.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Nature does nothing in vain. And she has given speech to man alone. [...] speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
As man is the best of animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when separated from law and justice.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Justice is a social necessity; for right is the rule of the political association, and the decision of what is just constitutes the right.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Authority and subordination are not only necessary things; they are also eminently useful things.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is horrible [...] that the stronger, merely because he can use violence, should make his victim his subject and his slave.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Every article of property has two uses [...]: one is the proper use of the article, and the other is not. A shoe may be used both for wearing and for exchange.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Is it not a ridiculous kind of wealth which a man may have in abundance and yet perish with hunger?
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The desire for life being unlimited, one is directly led to desire means to satisfy it which are also unlimited.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Usury is most reasonably hated, because it is a mode of acquisition born of money itself [...] Interest is money born of money, and of all acquisitions it is the most contrary to nature.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Philosophers, when they choose, know how to get rich easily, although that is not the object of their care.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The easiest of all is to refute a definition. [...] And the most difficult is to establish it.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
By induction, one passes from the particular to the general, and from the known to the unknown. Things of sensation are more known [...] at least for the common people.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
In general, when you want to hide your thought, you must question in such a way that [...] even when the conclusion is given, the interlocutor is still asking why.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
In a word, one must make it as obscure as possible whether one wants to take the thing in question or its opposite; for when what may be useful to the discussion remains obscure, one is more inclined to express one's true opinion.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
One must also sometimes offer a refutation against oneself; for respondents are completely without suspicion when one seems to present arguments with fairness.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is also useful to add that what one supports is customary; for people are reluctant to shake a received opinion when they do not have a ready refutation.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
One should use syllogism with dialecticians rather than with the common people; and conversely, one should rather use induction with the common people.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
When, after an induction made for several terms, the adversary does not grant the universal, it is then fair to ask the adversary for his objection.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
It is difficult to attack and easy to defend the same assumptions; and these assumptions are those that are naturally the first and the last.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The questioner must push the discussion so that the respondent answers with the most untenable things possible, according to the necessary data of the question.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The respondent must ensure that what he says that is impossible or paradoxical appears to come not from him, but from the question itself.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
This happy and natural disposition for the truth consists in being able to choose the true and flee the false. This is what those who are naturally gifted do with ease.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
One must not argue with everyone nor practice with any random person; for there are people with whom one can necessarily only produce very bad arguments.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
An argument is perfectly clear [...] when the conclusion is such that there is nothing left to ask after it.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
Quibbling, in matters of discussion, is a response that is contrary to all the indicated modes [...] and which destroys the syllogism.
End of the 4th century BC
Source: Topics
The poet is an imitator [...] he imitates things either as they were or are, or as they are said or believed to be, or finally as they should be.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Correctness is not of the same nature for poetics and for politics, nor even for any other art and for poetics.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Impossibilities have been imagined, which is a fault; but it is correct if the goal of the art is achieved.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The fault is less serious if the poet was unaware that the female deer has no horns than if he did not represent it according to the principles of imitation.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
If one criticizes the lack of truth, the answer is that the intent was to render objects as they should be.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Sophocles said that he himself represented men as they should be, and Euripides as they are.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
As for whether a character's speech or action is appropriate or not, one must not examine it in itself [...] but by also considering who is acting or speaking, to whom, when, and for what purpose.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Some have a prejudice not founded on reason; [...] they criticize that which contradicts their own thought.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
For poetry, the probable impossible must be preferred to the improbable, even if possible.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The work must surpass the model.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It is probable that certain things happen contrary to probability.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Criticism of an inconsistency or a wickedness is justified if either is used without any necessity.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Criticisms are drawn from five types [of ideas]: [the work is presented] as either impossible, inconsistent, harmful, contradictory, or [...] contrary to the rules of art.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It seems useful to know the essence to properly understand quality in substances [...]. But conversely, the knowledge of qualities also serves, in large part, to make known the essence of the thing.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Regarding the affections of the soul, one may ask if they are all common to the body that has the soul, or if there is not one that is exclusive to the soul itself.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
If the soul has one of its affections that is specially its own, it could be isolated from the body; but if it has nothing exclusively to itself, it cannot be separated from it.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The animate being seems to differ from the inanimate being by two things above all: movement and sensibility.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
It must be admitted that intelligence is the first in kind and sovereign in nature.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
To maintain that it is the soul that grows indignant is roughly like saying that it is the soul that weaves a web [...]. It would be better to say [...] that it is the man who does all this through his soul.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
But intelligence is perhaps something more divine, something impassible.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Each thing [...] has its own proper form; and it is as if one claimed that architecture could make musical instruments.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
One should not ask if the body and the soul are one and the same thing, any more than one should ask if the wax and the shape it receives are identical.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The true definition must not only show the existence of the thing [...], but it must also contain its cause and bring it to light.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
To affirm that a being is alive, it is enough that it possesses one of these things: intelligence, sensibility, movement, or nutrition.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Where there is sensation, there is also pain and pleasure; and where these two affections are, there is necessarily desire.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Intelligence seems to be another kind of soul, and the only one that can be isolated from the rest, as the eternal is isolated from the perishable.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
By the straight, we know both the straight itself and the curved. [...] The curved can be the measure of neither itself nor the straight.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The soul is the first entelechy of a natural organic body.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
To merely say that one must obey right reason is exactly as if someone said that the true way to maintain health is to only ever use healthy things.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
What is reason? And what is right reason?
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The intelligible is one thing, the sensible another; [...] the part of the soul that relates to the sensible must be entirely different from that which relates to the intelligible.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Prudence applies only to feasible and practical things, [...] which it is in our power to do or not to do.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
As for purely practical matters, there is no other end than the action itself.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Prudence is a virtue [...]; it is not a science; for prudent people are worthy of praise, and praise is addressed only to virtue.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Science relates only to things that admit of demonstration; but principles are indemonstrable.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Wisdom is a compound of science and understanding; for wisdom relates at once to both principles and to the demonstrations [...].
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Wisdom addresses things [...] that are always immutably what they are. But prudence [...] concerns those that are subject to change.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The characteristic of prudence [...] is to desire only the noblest things, to always prefer them, and to always do them.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Purely natural virtue acts without reason; and precisely because it is isolated from reason, it is weak [...] but by joining with reason [...] it forms accomplished and perfect virtue.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Socrates [...] was wrong to say that virtue is the fruit of reason alone.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
[...] virtue is the natural instinct for good guided by reason; because then it is at once [...] a thing worthy of esteem and praise.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The natural instinct that pushes us toward virtue helps reason and cannot exist without it.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Prudence [...] is like the steward of wisdom. It prepares for it [...] the leisure it needs to accomplish its superior work, by containing and moderating the passions.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Poetry consists in imitation.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[...] how fables must be constructed for poetry to be good.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Epic poetry, tragic poetry, comedy, [...] are all, in summary, forms of imitation.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[The arts] differ from one another in three respects. Their means of imitation are different; the objects imitated are different; and finally, the processes and manner of imitation are different.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[...] some people imitate many things [...] some by means of art, others by habit, and still others with the help of nature alone.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[The arts] produce imitation by means of rhythm, language, and harmony, used separately or together.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Rhythm is the sole element of imitation in the art of dancers, setting aside harmony.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It is through figured rhythms that they [dancers] imitate characters, passions, and actions.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Authors are called poets not according to the kind of imitation they practice, but indiscriminately, because of the meter they adopt.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Between Homer and Empedocles, there is nothing in common but the use of meter. So it is just to call the first a poet and the second a physicist, rather than a poet.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
Suppose [...] that an author creates a work of imitation by mixing various meters [...] he should nonetheless be given the name of poet.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
There are kinds of poetry that use all the elements mentioned above, namely: rhythm, song, and meter [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
One understands indivisibles [...] by the statement and the idea of their contrary.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Evil is known as the contrary of good.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The intellect is not always true.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Images are to the Intellect what sensations are to sensibility.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The intellect understands [...] and decides, by means of the images and thoughts it has kept in memory.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Nature does nothing in vain.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The speculative intellect [...] contemplates, it speculates, it conceives, and does nothing more.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Will or freedom, and necessity, are mutually exclusive.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Appetite [...] often moves [the being] against reasoning.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Reason and passion are in conflict.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Where there is only appetite without reason to calculate the consequences, [...] the animal obeys only a blind instinct.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
[The animal] does not foresee what is to follow, given that it has no notion of time.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Without being moved itself, [the moving principle] moves.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Sensibility constitutes the animal, and the sense of touch serves to preserve it.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
The other senses are only useful [...] to the animal that moves.
384–322 BC
Source: On the Soul
Anger is a desire, accompanied by pain, for open revenge for a perceived slight against us [...].
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
All anger is accompanied by a certain pleasure, that which comes from the hope of revenge.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Contempt is the result of an opinion which holds its object to be of no value.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Vexation is an impediment to the fulfillment of another's will, not for one's own benefit, but so that it does not benefit the other.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The cause of the pleasure felt by those who commit outrages is their belief that they are gaining a further advantage over those they harm.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The young and the rich are prone to insolence. They think their insults grant them superiority.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[...] all those who feel a passionate desire without being able to satisfy it are prone to anger and outburst.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
That which deviates greatly from expectation causes all the more pain, just as one finds all the more charm in that which surpasses expectation [...].
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If they believe themselves to be amply endowed with that which is mockingly challenged, they take no notice of it.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We get angry more readily with friends than with strangers, because we feel we are more entitled to receive good from them than not.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We are irritated by those who rejoice in our misfortune, or, generally, by those who remain calm in the face of our hardships.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We are irritated by those who respond with irony when spoken to seriously, for irony is a form of contempt.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is a mark of contempt not to consider us worthy of the kindnesses shown to everyone else.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Forgetfulness seems to be a mark of disdain, for it is through indifference that one forgets, and indifference is a form of disdain.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We get angry with those who do not return good for good and whose gratitude does not equal the service rendered.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The principle of movement is located higher than the very limb that is moved [...] one must go back to the internal principle of locomotion, which is in the soul.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
[There is] the necessity of a fixed point for any movement to be possible.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Nature does nothing in vain.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Substance is not the attribute of any subject.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
[The body is] like a city governed by good laws.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Old age is cold and dry.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Lascivious animals age faster.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
It is the being itself that then consumes itself.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The heart contains the principles of the sensations.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
A being, by the mere fact that it lives, [possesses a soul].
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Nature always strives [to do what is best].
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Natural death is painless [...] it is a deliverance in which the soul is untied.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Digestion is impossible without heat.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
There is nothing more different from the one who uses something, than the very thing which is used.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Reason and observation can mutually aid each other in the observation of nature.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Preference is always accompanied by reason, and [...] reason is not granted to any other animal.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The will can apply even to impossible things; for example, we might wish to be immortal. But we do not prefer it by a considered choice.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Preference does not apply to the goal itself that we pursue, but to the means that can lead to it. [...] What we want is the end itself.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
One must first think about things and deliberate on them, and it is only after [...] that a certain impulse arises in us that leads us to do the thing.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
There are a multitude of acts that we do of our own free will, before having thought and reflected upon them.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The voluntary act is not an act of preference; but the act of preference is always voluntary.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Preference can only take place in things that man can do, and in cases where it depends on us to act or not to act [...], in short, in all things where one can know the 'why' of what one does.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
In cases where one must act and where there is a possibility of choice and preference, [...] no preference is determined.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
In all cases where there can be no possible error for the mind, one does not deliberate.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is only in things where the manner in which they should be is not precisely determined, that there is a possibility of error.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Indetermination is found in all things that man can do, and in all those where the fault can be twofold and in two different directions.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
While aiming for virtue, we go astray on the paths that are natural and ordinary to us.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The fault [...] can be found equally in excess and in deficiency.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Pleasure pushes us to do wrong, and pain leads us to flee duty and the good.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Regarding power, character traits are, for the most part, easy to recognize.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The powerful are more jealous of honor and braver than the rich, because they aim for actions that their power allows them to accomplish.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[The powerful] are capable of greater activity, because they are [...] forced to watch over what constitutes their power.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[The powerful] are more dignified than grave; for the prestige of their position makes them more conspicuous, and for this reason they observe moderation.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Dignity is a gravity where ease combines with propriety.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
When [a powerful person] causes harm, it is not of small, but of great importance.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Happiness provides physical advantages in abundance.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Happiness makes us more arrogant and more unreasonable.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
There is an excellent character trait that accompanies happiness: the love of the gods and confidence in their power [...]
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The characters of people placed in opposite conditions are easy to recognize from their opposite traits.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If there is no middle term, there is no longer a demonstration; rather, one is on the path to first principles.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
Just as in other domains the principle is a simple thing [...], so in the syllogism the unit is an immediate premise, and in demonstration and science, it is the intellect.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
The best demonstration is that which gives us more knowledge [...], and we know a thing more when we know it through itself than when we know it through something else.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
If demonstration is the syllogism which proves the cause and the why, then the universal is more of a cause.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
Our search for the 'why' stops, and we then think we know, when the coming-to-be or existence of a thing is not due to the coming-to-be or existence of something else.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
The more particular a demonstration becomes, the more it falls into an infinite series, whereas universal demonstration tends towards the simple and the limit. Now, as particulars are infinite, they are not knowable.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
He who possesses the universal also knows the particular, whereas he who knows the particular does not know the universal.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
Universal demonstration is entirely intelligible, whereas particular demonstration terminates in sensation.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
A science is more exact and prior when it knows both the fact and the reason why, and not the fact itself separate from the reason why.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
There can be no science by demonstration of what is by chance. For what is by chance is neither necessary nor for the most part.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
The universal, that which applies to all cases, is impossible to perceive, for it is neither a determinate thing, nor a determinate moment; otherwise it would not be a universal.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
Science consists in universal knowledge.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
Science and its object differ from opinion and its object, in that science is universal and proceeds by necessary propositions, and the necessary cannot be otherwise than it is.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
One never thinks one has a mere opinion when one thinks that the thing cannot be otherwise: on the contrary, one then thinks one has knowledge.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
Quickness of wit is a faculty of hitting upon the middle term instantaneously.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Posterior Analytics
The common proofs are of two kinds: the example and the enthymeme, for the maxim is a part of the enthymeme.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The example resembles induction; now, induction is a starting point.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
There are two kinds of examples: one consists in relating facts that have happened before; in the other, one produces the example itself.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Public offices should not be filled by lot, [...] it is as if one were to choose athletes by lot, not those who are fit to compete, but those whom the lot would designate.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Instead of obtaining vengeance, the horse was, from then on, enslaved to the man.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Be careful that, in wanting to take revenge on your enemies, you do not suffer the same fate as the horse.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
These flies [...] are already gorged with my blood and draw but little from me, but if you take them away, other hungry ones will come and suck what blood I have left.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[The current politician] does you no more harm, for he is rich; whereas, if you put him to death, others will come, still poor, whose plunderings will devour the public fortune.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Finding analogous facts to draw from the past is difficult, whereas inventing stories is easy.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Arguments [...] are more useful for deliberation when borrowed from historical facts; for future events, most often, have their analogues in the past.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must resort to examples, either when one has no enthymemes at one's disposal—and then they serve as demonstrative arguments, for proof is established by their means.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Examples [...] which appear as epilogues resemble testimonies; now, a witness always has a persuasive character.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A reliable witness, even if they are the only one, is useful.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Everyone has the habit, once a good is obtained, of seeking to increase it.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The moral character of nobility is that its possessor is all the more a friend of glory.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[Nobility consists in] despising even those who are of a similar condition to our own ancestors.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Things considered from a distance are more apt than those placed before our eyes to bestow honor and vanity.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Nobility resides in the high value of the lineage; generosity, in not deviating from one's nature.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
This often happens with nobles; many of them are of little worth.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is with the products of the human race as with those of the earth.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Sometimes, if the lineage is good, superior men arise from time to time; then it resumes its ordinary course of propagation.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Well-endowed lineages eventually come to more senseless customs.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Lineages of a solid and staid character turn to foolishness and dullness.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Since falsehood is believed among mortals, we must consider that, conversely, many truths fail to gain credence.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If it is not shameful for you to sell, then it will not be shameful for us to buy.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If the gods do not know everything, even less so do men.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Do not make promises when you are about to get the result, only to withdraw [the promise] once you have obtained it.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
It is absurd to reproach others for what you do yourself [...] or to push others to do what you do not do.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
There is something hurtful [...] in not being able to reciprocate a kind act as well as a malicious one.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Death is an evil, for the gods have judged it so; otherwise, they themselves would be mortal.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Education has the consequence of arousing envy, which is an evil; but to be learned is also a good.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If you propose things that are just, men will hate you; if you propose things that are unjust, the gods will.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We do not praise the same things in public and in private: [...] we openly praise what is just and beautiful and, in private, what is useful.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Exiled from our city, we fought to return; now that we have returned, we would leave it to avoid fighting!
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Often [fate], when granting us great happiness, does not do so with benevolent intent, but to make our misfortunes all the more spectacular.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Often the best course of action only becomes clear in hindsight, while at the time the matter was obscure.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
No one willingly and knowingly chooses a bad course of action. But this reasoning is false.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Laws [...] need another law to correct them.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The rich and the poor seem to be the two most distinct parts of the State. [...] as the latter are usually in the majority and the former in the minority, they are regarded as two perfectly opposite political elements.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Demagogues only appear where the law has lost its sovereignty. [...] As soon as the people is monarch, it claims to act as a monarch, because it rejects the yoke of the law, and it becomes a despot; thus, flatterers are soon held in honor.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
There is no constitution except on the condition of the sovereignty of laws. The law must decide on general affairs, as the magistrate decides on particular affairs [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Often, without the constitution being democratic, the government, by the tendency of customs and minds, is popular; and conversely [...], although the legal constitution is rather democratic, the tendency of customs [...] is oligarchic.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Good laws alone do not constitute a good government [...]. There is therefore a good government first where the law is obeyed, and then where the law that is obeyed is founded on reason.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The essential principle of aristocracy seems to be to attribute political predominance to virtue; for its special character [...] is virtue, as wealth is that of oligarchy, and liberty that of democracy.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Every state contains three classes: the very rich citizens, the very poor, and the well-to-do citizens [...]. Since it is agreed that moderation and the mean are what is best, it follows that in terms of fortune, the middle property will be the most suitable.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Man neither wants nor knows how to obey. From childhood, he contracts this lack of discipline [...]. On the other hand, extreme poverty is no less degrading. Thus, poverty prevents one from knowing how to command, and it only teaches one to obey as a slave.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
[In a state without a middle class,] one sees only masters and slaves, and not a single free man. Here envious jealousy, there contemptuous vanity, both so far from that social fraternity [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is evident that the political association is best when it is formed by citizens of a middle fortune; well-administered states are those where the middle class is more numerous and more powerful than the other two combined [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Where there are many well-to-do fortunes, there are far fewer revolutionary movements and dissensions.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The principle of democratic government is liberty. [...] The first characteristic of liberty is the alternation of ruling and being ruled.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The second characteristic of liberty is the faculty left to each to live as he pleases; [...] as it is the mark of slavery not to have free will.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Weakness always demands equality and justice; strength cares nothing for it.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In every state, there are three parts, whose interests the legislator, if he is wise, will take care to regulate above all else. Once these three parts are well organized, the entire state is necessarily well organized itself.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Our treatise always says simply: He, without naming anyone; and it is only by examining the doctrines themselves that one can recognize to whom they belong.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
What would be surprising is if manuscripts necessarily neglected by the author [...] were to present us with more regularity.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The Eleatic school, despite its errors, is a most glorious school; and [...] it is very curious to hear its noble and profound theories on God and his omnipotence.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The succession of doctrines is no longer as well understood if one confuses the eras, and it is in the very interest of philosophy that one must be scrupulously exact.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Unique and all-powerful, sovereign of the strongest, God resembles us neither in spirit nor in body.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Humans, in making the Gods in their own image, lend them their thoughts, their voice, and their face.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If oxen and lions had hands and could paint [...], they would give the Gods they drew bodies just like their own [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is an equal impiety to believe in the birth of the Gods and in their death; for in either way, there is a moment when the Gods are no more.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If in your eyes she is a goddess, you must not mourn her; if she is but a mortal, no sacrifices should be made for her.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Homer and Hesiod] did not hesitate to attribute to the Gods everything that is dishonorable among men: theft, adultery, lying, betrayal.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Beneath the philosopher, in Melissus there is a patriot, a politician, an admiral, a man of war. This is rare enough in the history of philosophy that we should note it.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Gorgias's work was titled: 'On Non-Being, or On Nature'. [...] At its core, it is absolute skepticism.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Absolute skepticism] is a poor doctrine, which contains within itself, like all absolute skepticism, an inevitable contradiction.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It was four years before the condemnation of Socrates, another illusion, no doubt, at which the skeptic could also mock.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Greek philosophy, our venerable ancestor, was born, by a happy combination of circumstances, six centuries before our era [...]. [It is] one of the most considerable events in the annals of the human spirit.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
By nature, the city is a multitude; but if it strives for unity, from a city it becomes a family; from a family, an individual. [...] Were it possible to realize this system, it should be avoided, under penalty of annihilating the city.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Reciprocity in equality is [...] the salvation of States; it is the necessary relationship between free and equal individuals.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Very little care is given to common property; everyone thinks keenly of their private interests, and much less of the general interest [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Man has two great motives for care and love: property and affection.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is a great delight to oblige and help friends, guests, and companions; and it is only individual property that ensures us this happiness.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is dangerous for so many citizens to pass from comfort to misery, because it will be difficult, in that case, for them not to desire revolution.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The important point is to level passions rather than properties; and that equality results only from education regulated by good laws.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Revolutions arise from inequality of honors just as much as from inequality of fortunes.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is superfluity and not need that causes great crimes. One does not usurp a tyranny to protect oneself from the inclemency of the weather.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The greed of men is insatiable: at first, they are content with two obols; once they have made it a patrimony, their needs increase endlessly [...].
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Mankind must in general seek not what is ancient, but what is good.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The law, to be obeyed, has no other power than that of habit [...] so that to change existing laws lightly for new ones is to weaken the very force of the law.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Wherever the constitution has poorly regulated the position of women, it must be said that half the State is without laws.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Sparta sustained itself as long as it waged war; and triumph was its ruin, because it did not know how to enjoy peace.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
A law of this kind makes money more honorable than merit, and inspires the love of gold in the entire republic.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The soul [...] is divided into two parts, one rational, and the other irrational.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is in the irrational part that we find what are called virtues: temperance, justice, courage, and all the other moral virtues that seem worthy of esteem and praise.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is thanks to [these virtues], when we possess them, that we are said to deserve esteem and praise.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
One never receives praise for the virtues of the rational part of the soul; and thus, one does not praise someone directly for being wise, nor for being prudent.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
We praise only the irrational part of the soul, insofar as it can serve and does serve the rational part by obeying it.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Moral virtue is destroyed and lost both by deficiency and by excess.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
For obscure things, one must use perfectly clear examples.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Strength is likewise destroyed, both when one does too much exercise, and when one does not do enough.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is only through a just measure that one preserves both strength and health.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
If we suppose someone to be so unassailable by fear that he would not even fear the Gods, this will no longer be courage, it will be madness.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
If, on the contrary, you suppose that he fears everything, you make him a coward.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
The truly courageous heart will be neither the one that fears everything, nor the one that fears absolutely nothing.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is therefore the same causes that increase or destroy virtue.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Moderate fears only increase true courage.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
There is no one who is happy in all things.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
There is no one among men who is free. For one is a slave either to wealth or to fortune.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The greatest good for a man is [...] to be in good health.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
He is not in love who does not love always.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Do not keep an immortal anger, being mortal yourself.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The mortal must think of mortal things; immortal things must not occupy the mortal.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
A man of good sense should never teach his children a superfluous science.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The use of maxims is fitting for an old man, on account of his age and provided he applies them to subjects of which he has experience.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
[It is] foolishness and bad manners to utter maxims on subjects one does not master.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
He is a fool who, after killing the father, would let the children live.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
One must not, as they say, love as if one were to hate one day, but rather hate as if one were to love.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The true friend must love as if he were to love forever.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
We enjoy hearing stated in a general way what we already happen to think about a particular matter.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
Moral character is revealed in speeches where the speaker's intention is manifest.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
If the maxims are honest, they give the speaker's character an honest appearance as well.
329-323 BC
Source: Rhetoric (trans. Ruelle)
The principal quality of diction is to be clear without being plain.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
The clearest diction is that which consists of proper terms, but it is pedestrian.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[Diction] is elevated and departs from the vulgar style when it uses terms [...] that are beside the proper term.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
If one were to use such expressions indiscriminately, there would be either a riddle or a barbarism [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[...] one form of the riddle is to connect things that cannot be connected in order to state facts that exist.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[...] metaphor, ornament, and the other forms [...] will remove vulgarity and baseness from the style; the proper term will give it clarity.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It is an ill-founded reproach to criticize such a mode of language and to ridicule the poet who employs it [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It would be ridiculous to use this device in just any way, and measure must be kept in all its parts [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
As [certain forms of speech] do not fall under proper terms, they remove vulgarity from the style [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
It is certainly not a matter of indifference to make suitable use of each of the forms [...], but the most important thing is to have metaphorical language.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[Metaphorical language] is the one merit that cannot be borrowed from another and which denotes a naturally gifted mind [...].
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
[...] to place a metaphor well is to have regard for the relations of resemblance.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
In heroic poetry, all the means explained [...] are applicable. In iambs, as one seeks above all to imitate ordinary language, the most suitable nouns are [...] the proper term, the metaphor, and the ornament.
c. 335 BC
Source: Poetics (Ruelle translation)
First, that nothing exists; second, that if something exists, it is inaccessible to man; finally, that even if it were accessible, one can neither express it nor make it understood to others.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is absurd for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If non-being exists, then being does not exist; for they are reciprocally contrary to one another.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If being is eternal, [...] it has no beginning, [...] it is infinite; and being infinite, it is nowhere.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
That which contains is greater than the contained. But there can be nothing greater than the infinite; therefore, the infinite is nowhere.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Non-being could not produce anything, since that which is capable of producing something must of necessity already partake of existence.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The multiple is composed only of the combination of units; and as soon as one suppresses the unit, one suppresses plurality at the same time.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If thoughts were realities, then everything one thinks would exist [...] which is obviously absurd.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If one likes to imagine a man flying in the air [...], it does not follow from this alone that the man can indeed fly. Thus, thoughts [...] are not realities.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If things thought are beings, it follows that things which are not cannot be thought; for contrary properties belong to contraries.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Each thing [...] must be judged by its own special sense and not by a foreign one.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The means of explanation we have is speech; and speech is neither the objects themselves nor the beings.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
It is not beings that we explain to others; it is only speech, which is absolutely different from the realities themselves.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Just as the visible cannot become [...] audible, [...] so being, which is supposed to be external to us, cannot become our speech.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Speech cannot reveal [...] external objects, just as most objects cannot mutually reveal the nature of one another.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Magnificence is the mean between ostentation and pettiness.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
He who spends when he ought not to is ostentatious and prodigal.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Ostentation consists in making a show of one's fortune on occasions where one should not display it.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Pettiness [...] consists in not knowing how to spend on a large scale when it is suitable.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
When one resolves to make large expenditures [...], not knowing how to make the appropriate expense and haggling over it sparingly. That is what is called being petty.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
One understands well enough that magnificence is just as we describe it, merely from the name it bears.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
It is because [magnificence] does things on a grand scale on occasion, as it is proper to do them, that it rightly receives the name of magnificence.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Magnificence [...] is a certain mean between excess and defect in expenditures, according to the circumstances in which it is proper to make them.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
Properly speaking, magnificence exists only within the limits we have stated.
4th century BC
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
We must first investigate whether there is really something that is born and dies in an absolute way, or if there is nothing that is born and dies, properly speaking.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
If we admit absolute production, then being must come absolutely from non-being, from nothingness [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
In one sense there can be absolute production of something coming from nothingness, [...] and in another sense, nothing can ever come except from that which is.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[...] we arrive at this consequence, which the first philosophers dreaded above all, of making things be born from pure nothingness.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
How is it that the entire world has not already been exhausted [...] if the source from which each of these beings comes is limited and finite?
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Does the perpetuity of succession not become necessary simply because the destruction of one thing is the production of another, and, reciprocally, the production of the latter is the [...] destruction of the former?
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
We say of someone who learns that he becomes learned, but we do not thereby say that he comes to be and is produced absolutely.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
[Matter] whose differences express more of this or that reality, is also more of a substance; and that whose differences express more of privation is more of non-being.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
For the common person, what constitutes [...] the difference between production and destruction is that one is perceptible to the senses, and the other is not.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Men generally define being and non-being according to whether they sense the thing or not [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
They take for being what is known, and for non-being, what is unknown. But then it is sensibility that fulfills the function of science.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
All production being the destruction of something else, and all destruction being the production of something else as well [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
The subject, as matter, is the cause of the continuous and eternal production of things, since it can change indifferently into the contraries [...].
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Just as we say a thing is destroyed absolutely when it passes into the insensible [...], so we can say it is produced [...] when it comes from the insensible.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Production is the destruction of non-being, and destruction is the production of nothingness.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Source: On Generation and Corruption
Every city is a kind of association, and every association is formed only for the sake of some good or some advantage.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is for their own good, or for what seems to them as such, that men do everything they do.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
All associations aim at some good, and this is especially the purpose of the one that is more powerful than all the others [...], that is what we call a city.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Those who believe that political [...], economic, and despotic government are the same, are not right; for they imagine that they differ only in number [...], and not in kind.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Just as [...] one must divide the compound until one arrives at elements that are entirely simple [...], so, by considering what elements a city is composed of, we will better see how they differ.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The best way [...] to establish a theory [...], as on all other [subjects], is to observe things in their origin and in their development.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It is first a necessity that beings who could not exist without one another [...] unite [...], for the purpose of generation.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Nature [...] inspires [...] the desire to leave behind another being that resembles them.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
There is [...] by the fact of nature and for the purpose of the conservation of species, a being that commands, and a being that obeys.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
He whom his intelligence makes capable of foresight naturally has the authority and the power of a master.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
He who has only the bodily faculties for execution [...] must naturally obey and serve.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Each being [...] has its purpose, its task to which it is exclusively suited.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The instrument crafted with the most perfection can only serve for the execution of a single kind of work.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Naturally, the association that is formed to provide for everyday needs is the family.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The principle of democratic government is freedom.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The first characteristic of freedom is the alternation of ruling and being ruled.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
[The second characteristic of freedom] is the ability left to each to live as he pleases; this [...] is the mark of liberty, as it is the mark of slavery not to have free will.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
In a democracy, the poor are sovereign to the exclusion of the rich, because they are the most numerous, and the opinion of the majority is law.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
According to the supporters of democracy, justice lies solely in the decision of the majority; according to the supporters of oligarchy, justice is the decision of the rich.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Weakness always demands equality and justice; strength is not concerned with it at all.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
To work is better [...] than to govern and command, where the exercise of power does not yield great profits; for men in general prefer money to honors.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The unlimited independence of the individual will cannot be a barrier against the vices that each of us carries within.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
For the legislator [...] to establish a government is neither the only nor the greatest difficulty; it is rather to know how to make it last.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Nowadays, to please the people, demagogues have the courts pronounce enormous confiscations.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
To give such aid to poverty is to want to fill a bottomless barrel.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Political constitutions: the worse they are, the more precautions they require.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
The leaders of oligarchies [...] seek profit as ardently as honor.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
It would be quite useless to render justice if verdicts were not to be followed up; and civil society is no more possible without the execution of judgments than without the justice that renders them.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Unable to have slaves, the poor are forced to involve their children and their wives in their work.
c. 350 BCE
Source: Politics
Large animals and large plants generally have a longer life [...] for it is quite simple that the largest beings also have more moisture.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
This explains how man lives longer than some animals that are, moreover, larger than him.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
For a being not to be easily destructible, it must not produce too much residue; for all residue destroys the animal [...].
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Lascivious animals and those with a lot of semen age early: semen is a residue, and the emission of semen dries out the animal.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Males, by their particular nature, should generally live longer than females; and the cause is that the [male] animal is naturally warmer than the female.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The same animals live longer in hot climates than in cold climates, for the same reason that large animals live longer than small ones.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Animals and plants die when they do not take in food; it is the being itself that is then consumed.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
It is among plants that we find the longest-living beings [...]. [It is because] plants are always rejuvenating; and that is why they live so long.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The upper part of the plant, and its head, is the root.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Nature always does everything for the best.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Death is but the destruction of natural heat.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Fire can be extinguished [...] in two ways: [...] it goes out by itself, or it is suffocated [...]. In the first case, it is old age; in the other, it is a violent destruction.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
Plants live, but they do not have sensitivity; and it is this faculty of feeling that separates what is animal from what is not.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The roots correspond precisely to what is called the mouth in animals.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History
The best-organized animals are not susceptible to this division [into several living parts], because their nature is one to the highest possible degree.
c. 350 BC
Source: Short Treatises on Natural History