“… the good man in becoming a friend becomes a good to his friend.” – Aristotle, ‘Nicomachean Ethics’
Today we share the works of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle (382-322 BCE), who not only was a student of Plato, but also tutor to Alexander the Great (Aristotle was called to service by Philip ll, and he taught Alexander for 7 years until Alexander became King of Macedon in 336 BCE).
Introduction
Aristotle made significant contributions to a wide range of subjects, including metaphysics, ethics, politics, logic, and natural sciences, and his philosophy has had a profound and lasting impact on Western thought.
For example: on the subject of logic, Aristotle developed the syllogistic method, a form of deductive reasoning that later became the basis for formal logic; and, on the subject of ethics, Aristotle properly defined virtue and vice, and the means between extremes of excess and deficiency, for the first time, setting the foundations of virtue ethics for other great thinkers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Jean Bodin, and David Hume, to name only a few, to follow.
Primary Sources
Quotes are excerpted from the Bollingen Series LXXI-2 edition of the revised Oxford translation of ‘The Complete Works Of Aristotle’, a two-volume set published by Princeton University Press in 1995 and edited by Jonathan Barnes.
Works of Aristotle cited: ‘Posterior Analytics’, ‘Topics’, ‘Sophistical Refutations’, ‘Physiognomonics’, ‘Problems’, ‘Metaphysics’, ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, ‘Magna Moralia’, ‘Eudemian Ethics’, ‘On Virtues And Vices’, ‘Politics’, ‘Economics’, ‘Rhetoric’, ‘Rhetoric To Alexander’
Quotes From The Works Of Aristotle
Autonomy
‘Posterior Analytics’
“All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge.”
“Ignorance – what is called ignorance not in virtue of a negation but in virtue of a disposition – is error coming about through deduction.”
“What is understandable, and understanding, differ from what is opinable, and opinion, because understanding is universal and through necessities, and what is necessary cannot be otherwise… it is not possible to opine and to understand the same thing at the same time…”
“Acumen is a talent for hitting upon the middle term in an imperceptible time…”
“The things we seek are equal in number to those we understand. We seek four things: the fact, the reason why, if it is, what it is.”
“… from perception there comes memory, as we call it, and from memory, experience… And from experience… there comes a principle of skill and of understanding – of skill if it deals with how things come about, of understanding if it deals with what is the case.”
“… it is not possible for anything to be truer than understanding, except comprehension…”
‘Sophistical Refutations’
“Of arguments used in discussion there are four classes: didactic, dialectical, examinational, and contentious arguments. Didactic arguments are those that deduce from the principles appropriate to each subject and not from the opinions held by the answerer; dialectical arguments are those that deduce from reputable premisses, to the contradictory of a given thesis; examinational arguments are those that deduce from premisses which are accepted by the answerer and which any one who claims to possess knowledge of the subject is bound to know; contentious arguments are those that deduce or appear to deduce to a conclusion from premisses that appear to be reputable but are not so.”
“… if we grasp the starting-points of the reputable deductions on any subject we grasp those of the refutations.”
‘Physiognomonics’
“Mental character is not independent of and unaffected by bodily processes, but is conditioned by the state of the body…”
‘Problems’
“… intelligence is one of the gifts of nature.”
‘Metaphysics’
“… knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience…”
‘Nicomachean Ethics’
“… there are three things in the soul which control action and truth – sensation, thought, desire.”
“… the states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number – art, knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, comprehension…”
“… excellence in deliberation involves reasoning…”
‘Magna Moralia’
“Good fortune… is nature without reason.”
“… happiness cannot exist apart from external goods…”
Liberty
‘Metaphysics’
“… the man is free… who exists for himself and not for another…”
‘Politics’
“… the basis of a democratic state is liberty… a man should live as he likes.”
Social Capital
‘Sophistical Refutations’
“… argue from men’s wishes and their professed opinions. For people do not wish the same things as they say they wish: they say what will look best, whereas they wish what appears to be to their interest… they are bound to introduce a paradox: for they will speak contrary either to their professed or to their hidden opinions.”
‘Nicomachean Ethics’
“… the requital of services… is characteristic of grace – we should serve in return one who has shown grace to us, and should another time take the initiative in showing it.”
“Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to be loved rather than to love; which is why most men love flattery; for the flatterer is a friend in an inferior position, or pretends to be such and to love more than he is loved; and being loved seems to be akin to being honoured, and this is what most people aim at.”
“… men journey together with a view to some particular advantage, and to provide something that they need…”
“Every form of friendship… involves association…”
‘Magna Moralia’
“Among the unequal… there arises friendship based on utility.”
‘Economics’
“… a virtuous wife is best honoured when she sees that her husband is faithful to her, and has no preference for another woman, but before all others loves and trusts her and holds her as his own. And so much the more will the woman seek to be what he accounts her, if she perceives that her husband’s affection for her is faithful and righteous, and she too will be faithful and righteous towards him… to a wife nothing is of more value, nothing more rightfully her own, than honoured and faithful partnership with her husband.”
“… and in his conversation with her, [the husband] should use only the words of a right-minded man, suggesting only such acts as are themselves lawful and honourable; treating her with much self-restraint and trust, and passing over any trivial or unintentional errors she has committed. And if through ignorance she has done wrong, he should advise her of it without threatening, in a courteous and modest manner. Indifference and harsh reproof he must alike avoid.”
“… between a free woman and her lawful spouse there should be a reverent and modest mingling of love and fear.”
“… a husband should… secure the agreement, loyalty, and devotion of his wife, so that whether he himself is present or not, there may be no difference in her attitude towards him, since she realizes that they are alike guardians of the common interests…”
“… if the husband learns first to master himself, he will… become his wife’s best guide in all the affairs of life…”
‘Rhetoric’
“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself… The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able to reason logically, to understand human characters and excellences, and to understand the emotions – that is, to know what they are, their nature, their causes and the way in which they are excited.”
‘Rhetoric To Alexander’
“For a community such things as concord, strength for war, wealth, a plentiful supply of revenue, and excellence and abundance of allies are expedient.”
“A good citizen is one who provides that state with useful friends and few and feeble foes, and who procures for her the greatest revenue without confiscating the property of s single private citizen, and who, while conducting himself righteously, exposes those who attempt any injury to the state… To act justly is to follow the common customs of the state, to obey the law, and to abide by one’s personal promises.”
Sovereignty
‘Nicomachean Ethics’
“… it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together…”
“… justice exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law exists for men between whom there is injustice… This is why we do not allow a man to rule, but law…”
‘Politics’
“In all well-balanced governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.”
Virtues
‘Topics’
“… what produces happiness is more desirable than health…”
“… prudence is both virtue and knowledge…”
‘Sophistical Refutations’
“… wisdom is a knowledge of evils.”
‘Physiognomonics’
“Courage is not confined to the lion… not timidity to the hare.”
‘Metaphysics’
“… Wisdom is a science of first principles…”
‘Nicomachean Ethics’
“… some excellences are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral… Excellence, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual excellence in the main owes its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral excellence comes about as a result of habit…”
“… as a condition of the possession of the excellences, knowledge has little or no weight…”
“… things that are found in the soul are of three kinds – passions, faculties, states… By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain; by faculties the things in virtue of which we are said to be capable of feelings these; by states the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions…”
“… excess and defect are characteristics of vice, and the mean of excellence; For men are good in but one way, but bad in many. Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect…”
“With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness… With regard to money there are also other dispositions – a mean, magnificence (for the magnificent man differs from the liberal man; the former deals with large sums, the latter with small ones)…”
“With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort of empty vanity, and the deficiency is undue humility…”
“With regard to pleasantness in the giving of amusement the intermediate person is ready-witted and the disposition ready wit, the excess is buffoonery… while the man who falls short is a sort of boor and his state is boorishness.”
“Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite..”
“… it is not rashness, which is an excess, but cowardice, which is a deficiency, that is more opposed to courage, and not insensibility, which is a deficiency, but self-indulgence, which is an excess, that is more opposed to temperance… we ourselves tend more naturally to pleasures, and hence are more easily carried away towards self-indulgence than towards propriety.”
“…moral excellence is a mean… between two vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency…”
“… the excellences in general… are in our power and voluntary…”
“… courage is noble…courage is a mean with respect to things that inspire confidence or fear…”
“… temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures… self-indulgence also is manifested in the same sphere… The self-indulgent man… craves for all pleasant things or those that are most pleasant, and is led by his appetite to choose these at the cost of everything else… The temperate man occupies a middle position with regard to these objects…”
“… the appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize with reason; for the noble is the mark at which both aim, aim the temperate man craves for the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought; and this is what reason directs.”
“… the liberal man is praised… with regard to the giving and taking of wealth, and especially in respect of giving… gratitude is felt towards him who gives, not towards him who does not take…”
“… he is liberal who spends according to his substance and on the right objects; and he who exceeds is prodigal.”
“Magnificence… surpasses liberality in scale… For the magnificent man is liberal, but the liberal man is not necessarily magnificent.”
“The magnificent man is like an artist; for he can see what is fitting and spend large sums tastefully.”
“… pride implies greatness… On the other hand, he who thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them, is vain…”
“Pride… seems to be a sort of crown of excellence; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them.”
“… the proud man despises justly (since he thinks truly), but the many do so at random.”
“Vain people… are fools and ignorant of themselves…”
“We blame both the ambitious man as aiming at honour more than is right and from wrong sources, and the unambitious man as not choosing to be honoured even for noble reasons. But sometimes we praise the ambitious man as being manly and a love of what is noble, and the unambitious man as being moderate and temperate…”
“… falsehood is in itself mean and culpable, and truth noble and worthy of praise.”
“Those who carry humour to excess are thought to be vulgar buffoons, striving after humour at all costs… those who joke in a tasteful way are called ready witted… To the middle state belongs also tact; it is the mark of a tactful man to say and listen to such things as befit a good and well-bred man… Such, then, is the man who observes the mean, whether he be called tactful or ready-witted. The buffoon, on the other hand, is the slave of his sense of humour…”
“… justice is often thought to be the greatest of excellences [and], alone of the excellences, is thought to be another’s good…”
“… the equitable is just…”
“… wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of knowledge… wisdom must be comprehension combined with knowledge…”
“… it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom…”
“The temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance…”
‘Magna Moralia’
“… excellence is a habit of the soul.”
“Moral excellence is destroyed by defect and excess.”
“Magnificence is a mean between ostentation and shabbiness.”
“Dignity is in a mean between pride and complaisance…”
“Modesty is a mean between shamelessness and bashfulness…”
“Wit is a mean state between buffoonery and boorishness…”
“Friendliness is a mean state between flattery and unfriendliness…”
“Truthfulness is a mean between self-depreciation and boastfulness.”
“Excellence… is that sort of condition which is produced by the best movements in the soul, and from which are produced the soul’s best works and feelings…”
‘Eudemian Ethics’
“Shame is a mean between shamelessness and shyness…”
‘On Virtues And Vices’
“Wisdom is an excellence of the rational part capable of procuring all that tends to happiness.”
“Justice is an excellence of the soul that distributes to each according to his desert.”
“To wisdom belongs right deliberation, right judgment as to what is good and bad and all in life that is to be chosen and avoided, noble use of all the goods that belong to us, correctness in social intercourse, the grasping of the right moment, the sagacious use of word and deed, the possession of experience of all that is useful. Memory, experience, tact, good judgment, sagacity – each of these either arises from wisdom or accompanies it.”
“To temperance belongs absence of admiration for the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, absence of desire for all base sensual enjoyment, fear of ill-repute, an ordered course of life, alike in small things and in great. And temperance is accompanied by discipline, orderliness, shame, caution.”
“Liberality is accompanied by a suppleness and ductility of disposition, by kindness, by pitifulness, by love for friends, for strangers, for what is noble.”
“It belongs to magnanimity to bear nobly good and bad fortune, honour and dishonour… to have a sort of depth and greatness of soul.”
‘Politics’
“… courage is emboldened by power, and the union of the two inspires them with the hope of an easy victory.”
“There are three things which make men good and excellent; these are nature, habit, reason.”
‘Rhetoric’
“We may define happiness as prosperity combined with excellence; or as independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, together with the power of guarding one’s property and body and making use of them. That happiness is one or more of these things, pretty well everybody agrees. From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent parts are: good birth, plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good children, plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily excellences as health, beauty, strength, large stature, athletic powers, together with fame, honour, good luck, and excellence. A man cannot fail to be completely independent if he possesses these internal and these external goods…”
“The parts of excellence are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, wisdom. If excellence is a faculty of beneficence, the highest kinds of it must be those which are most useful to others, and for this reason men honour most the just and the courageous…”
‘Rhetoric To Alexander’
“For the body, strength, beauty, and health are expedient; for the soul, courage, wisdom, and justice.”
Final Thoughts
Aristotle’s enduring wisdom reveals itself through the remarkable coherence of his philosophical system. From his logical syllogisms to his ethical framework of the golden mean, we see a thinker who understood that human flourishing requires both intellectual rigor and practical wisdom. His insight that “excellence is a habit of the soul” reminds us that virtue is not merely an abstract ideal but something cultivated through consistent practice and mindful choice.
What strikes the modern reader most forcefully is Aristotle’s integration of individual excellence with social responsibility. His observation that justice is “thought to be another’s good” captures a profound truth about human interdependence—that our personal virtues find their fullest expression in service to the common good. This balance between self-cultivation and civic duty offers a compelling vision for navigating contemporary challenges.
The philosopher’s emphasis on proportion and moderation speaks directly to our age of extremes. In defining courage as the mean between cowardice and rashness, or liberality as the balance between prodigality and meanness, Aristotle provides a framework for ethical decision-making that transcends cultural boundaries and historical epochs. His recognition that “men are good in but one way, but bad in many” acknowledges both the difficulty and the nobility of the virtuous path.
Perhaps most significantly, Aristotle’s linking of happiness to excellence rather than mere pleasure offers a vision of human fulfillment grounded in the development of our highest capacities. His assertion that happiness consists in “prosperity combined with excellence” suggests that material well-being, while important, finds its true value only when united with moral and intellectual virtue. This synthesis of the practical and the philosophical remains one of his greatest gifts to humanity.
In studying Aristotle, we encounter not just historical curiosity but living wisdom—principles that continue to illuminate the path toward human flourishing. His systematic approach to understanding virtue, friendship, justice, and the good life provides both a mirror for self-examination and a compass for ethical navigation. As we face the complexities of the 21st century, Aristotle’s ancient wisdom offers surprisingly contemporary guidance for those seeking to live lives of meaning, purpose, and excellence.
Thanks for reading!