Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. At eighteen, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government – and constitute the first comprehensive system...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
That which is impossible and probable is better than that which is possible and improbable.
There are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.
But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.
While fiction is often impossible, it should not be implausible.
With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.
It is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habit
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.
Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude... by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself . . . with incidents arousing pity and terror, with which to accomplish its purgation of these emotions.
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.