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
For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.
A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.
for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use
Happiness is the highest good
Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.
Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.
The secret to humor is surprise.
For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.... And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant ...; therefore since they philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.