230+ Aristotle Quotes – Best Quotes on Happiness & Education

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle remains a beacon of wisdom, particularly when understanding happiness and education.

In this article, we embark on a journey through the Most Popular Aristotle Quotes, focusing on his insights into pursuing happiness and the essence of education.

Aristotle’s quotes delve into the core of human existence, offering profound guidance on how to lead a fulfilling life and nurture the mind. His words on happiness emphasize the importance of virtue and balance, while his thoughts on education illuminate the path to wisdom and enlightenment.

Join us as we explore the Best Quotes on Happiness and Education by Aristotle and discover how his timeless teachings continue to resonate with those seeking a meaningful and enlightened life. Aristotle’s wisdom serves as a timeless guide, transcending centuries and cultures.

Most Popular Aristotle Quotes

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. –  Aristotle

 

Anyone can become angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way — this is not easy.  – Aristotle

 

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. –  Aristotle

 

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny. — Aristotle

 

 The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead. –  Aristotle

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. – Aristotle

 

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. – Aristotle

 

Happiness, then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed. –  Aristotle

 

Wit is educated insolence. –  Aristotle

 

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. –  Aristotle

 

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life. –  Aristotle

A friend to all is a friend to none. – Aristotle

 

Masculine republics give way to feminine democracies, and feminine democracies give way to tyranny. – Aristotle

 

Man is by nature a political animal. – Aristotle

 

Education is the best provision for old age. – Aristotle

 

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world. – Aristotle

 

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain. – Aristotle

 

The law is the reason, free from passion. – Aristotle

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. – Aristotle

 

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. – Aristotle

 

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is a habit.- Aristotle

 

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life: the whole aim and end of human existence. – Aristotle

 

With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note. – Aristotle

 

Happiness depends upon ourselves. – Aristotle

 

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. – Aristotle

 

Democracy arose from men’s thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely. – Aristotle

 

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness. – Aristotle

 

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. – Aristotle

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others. – Aristotle

 

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. – Aristotle

 

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. – Aristotle

 

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity. ― Aristotle

 

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. ― Aristotle

 

People have been destroyed by their money, and others by their courage. — Aristotle

 

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. –Aristotle

To perceive is to suffer. – Aristotle

 

Be a free thinker and don’t accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in. – Aristotle

 

The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle

 

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age. – Aristotle

 

In a democracy, the poor will have more power than the rich because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. – Aristotle

 

 First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. – Aristotle

 

The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake. – Aristotle

A line is not made up of points. … In the same way, time is not made up of parts considered as indivisible nows. – Aristotle

 

All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established. – Aristotle

 

We think in pictures. If you wish to change what you think, change the picture.- Aristotle

 

Our happiness depends upon ourselves. – Aristotle

 

To become an able man in any profession, there are three things necessary — nature, study, and practice. – Aristotle

 

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle

 

Hope is a waking dream. – Aristotle

 

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons. – Aristotle

 

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. – Aristotle

 

All human beings, by nature, desire to know. – Aristotle

 

The energy of the mind is the essence of life. – Aristotle

 

Quality is not an act, it is a habit. – Aristotle

 

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. – Aristotle

 

The good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind. – Aristotle

 

Is happiness something that can be learned, or acquired by habituation, or cultivated in some other way? — Aristotle

 

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. – Aristotle

 

Nature does nothing uselessly. – Aristotle

 

The most important relationship we can all have is the one you have with yourself, the most important journey you can take is one of self-discovery. To know yourself, you must spend time with yourself, you must not be afraid to be alone. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. – Aristotle

 

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. – Aristotle

 

When their adventures do not succeed, however, they run away; but it was the mark of a brave man to face things that are, and seem, terrible for a man because it is noble to do so and disgraceful not to do so. – Aristotle

 

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly. – Aristotle

 

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom. – Aristotle

 

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more. – Aristotle

 

A nose that varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye. – Aristotle

 

Happiness belongs to self-sufficient. – Aristotle

 

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.- Aristotle

 

Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions. – Aristotle

 

If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out. – Aristotle

 

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do. – Aristotle

 

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst. – Aristotle

 

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions. – Aristotle

 

Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach. – Aristotle

 

All men by nature desire knowledge. – Aristotle

 

 To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill. – Aristotle

 

There is no great genius without some touch of madness. – Aristotle

 

The heart is the perfection of the whole organism. Therefore, the principles of the power of perception and the soul’s ability to nourish itself must lie in the heart. – Aristotle

 

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted. ― Aristotle

 

What prompts us to action is desire, and desire has three forms—appetite, passion, wish. – Aristotle

 

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.  – Aristotle

 

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. – Aristotle

 

A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything. – Aristotle

 

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.. – Aristotle

 

Friends are an aid to the young, to guard them against error; to the elderly, to attend to their wants and to supplement their failing power of action; to those in the prime of life, to assist them to noble deeds. – Aristotle

 

Most people would rather give than get affection. – Aristotle

 

In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous. – Aristotle

 

The end of labor is to gain leisure. – Aristotle

 

Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. – Aristotle

 

Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods. – Aristotle

 

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled. – Aristotle

 

Yes, the truth is that men’s ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice. – Aristotle

 

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. – Aristotle

 

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching. – Aristotle

 

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals. – Aristotle

 

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain. – Aristotle

 

Change in all things is sweet. – Aristotle

 

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully. – Aristotle

 

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. – Aristotle

 

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper. – Aristotle

 

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. – Aristotle

 

We acquire a particular quality by acting in a particular way. — Aristotle

 

Each man judges well the things he knows. – Aristotle

 

The Gods too are fond of a joke. – Aristotle

 

Only an armed people can be truly free. Only unarmed people can ever be enslaved. – Aristotle

 

We make war that we may live in peace. – Aristotle

 

People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things that are just. – Aristotle

 

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. – Aristotle

 

For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve. – Aristotle

 

The generality of men is naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness. – Aristotle

 

All animals whatsoever, whether they fly or swim or walk upon dry land, whether they bring forth their young alive or in the egg, develop in the same way. – Aristotle

 

Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him. – Aristotle

 

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life — knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live. – Aristotle

 

Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily. – Aristotle

 

Law is order, and good law is good order. – Aristotle

 

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes. – Aristotle

 

One thing alone, not even God can do, To make undone whatever hath been done. – Aristotle

 

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of time and is forgotten through the lapse of time. – Aristotle

 

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion. – Aristotle

 

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.  – Aristotle

 

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heartthrobs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. – Aristotle

 

Music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.

 

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time. – Aristotle

 

Evil destroys even itself. — Aristotle

 

A constitution is the arrangement of magistrates in a state.  –  Aristotle

 

No one loves the man whom he fears. – Aristotle

 

Happiness is a quality of the soul…not a function of one’s material circumstances. – Aristotle

 

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. – Aristotle

 

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world. – Aristotle

 

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids. – Aristotle

 

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances. – Aristotle

 

Among the sea-fishes, many stories are told about the dolphin, indicative of his gentle and kindly nature…. It appears to be the fleetest of all animals, marine and terrestrial, and it can leap over the masts of large vessels. – Aristotle

 

Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love. – Aristotle

 

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace. – Aristotle

 

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. – Aristotle

 

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil. – Aristotle

 

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. – Aristotle

 

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends. – Aristotle

 

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others. – Aristotle

 

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. – Aristotle

 

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.  – Aristotle

 

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well. – Aristotle

 

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics. – Aristotle

 

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. ― Aristotle

 

Character is determined by choice, not opinion. – Aristotle

 

Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal. – Aristotle

 

Civil confusions often spring from trifles but decide great issues. – Aristotle

 

You should never think without an image. – Aristotle

 

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the nonperformance of base ones. – Aristotle

 

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence. – Aristotle

 

Friendship is essentially a partnership. – Aristotle

 

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit. – Aristotle

 

Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth’s] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance. – Aristotle

 

I have gained this by philosophy; that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. – Aristotle

 

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free. – Aristotle

 

If women are by barbarians reduced to the level of slaves, it is because barbarians themselves have never yet risen to the rank of men. – Aristotle

 

The secret to humor is surprise. – Aristotle

 

This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own. – Aristotle

 

Whatever lies within our power to do lies also within our power not to do. – Aristotle

 

Friends hold a mirror up to each other; through that mirror, they can see each other in ways that would not otherwise be accessible to them, and it is this mirroring that helps them improve themselves as persons. – Aristotle

 

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. – Aristotle

 

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions. – Aristotle

 

one Greek city-state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged. – Aristotle

 

He who can be, and therefore is, another’s, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend but not to have, is a slave by nature. ― Aristotle

 

To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. — Aristotle

 

Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.  – Aristotle

 

It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it. – Aristotle

 

The greatness of spirit is accompanied by simplicity and sincerity. – Aristotle

 

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. – Aristotle

 

A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end. – Aristotle

 

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. – Aristotle

 

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. – Aristotle

 

Where the interests of truth are at actual stake, we ought, perhaps, to sacrifice even that which is our own–if, at least, we are to lay any claim to a philosophic spirit. – Aristotle

 

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotism. – Aristotle

 

To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do. – Aristotle

 

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. – Aristotle

 

He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. – Aristotle

 

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought. – Aristotle

 

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason, the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. – Aristotle

 

The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place. – Aristotle

 

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through the greatness of mind. ― Aristotle

 

The lover of truth who is truthful even when nothing is at stake will be keener to tell the truth when something is at stake. – Aristotle

 

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye. – Aristotle

 

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it. – Aristotle

 

Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people and making them incapable of decisive action. – Aristotle

 

A state is not a mere society, having a commonplace, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange…Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. – Aristotle

 

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.  – Aristotle

 

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference. – Aristotle

 

The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later. – Aristotle

 

The brave man, if he is compared with the coward, seems foolhardy; and, if with the foolhardy man, seems a coward. – Aristotle

 

It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize. – Aristotle

 

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader. – Aristotle

 

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed. – Aristotle

 

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions. – Aristotle

 

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. – Aristotle

 

With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible. – Aristotle

 

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness. – Aristotle

 

The magnificent person differs from the generous by being concerned with large matters, while the generous person is concerned with the small. – Aristotle

 

No one would choose a friendless existence on the condition of having all the other things in the world. –Aristotle

 

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. – Aristotle

 

It is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil. – Aristotle

 

Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite. – Aristotle

 

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile. – Aristotle

 

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures. – Aristotle

 

Through discipline comes freedom. – Aristotle

 

If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents. – Aristotle

 

Memory is the scribe of the soul. – Aristotle

 

Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish. – Aristotle

 

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition. – Aristotle

 

No happy man can become miserable, for he will never do acts that are hateful and mean. – Aristotle

 

Separation of Powers is A Problem for Forging Police. – Aristotle

 

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves. ― Aristotle

 

Happiness is not a state. For if it were, someone might have it and yet be asleep for his whole life, living the life of a plan or suffer the greatest misfortunes. We count happiness as an activity rather than a state. – Aristotle

 

Something is infinite if, taking it quantity by quantity, we can always take something outside. – Aristotle

 

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employment.
– Aristotle

 

The proof that you know something is that you are able to teach it. – Aristotle

 

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. – Aristotle

 

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one. – Aristotle

 

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. – Aristotle

 

A friend is a second self so that our consciousness of a friend’s existence…makes us more fully conscious of our own existence. – Aristotle

 

Generally, about all perception, we can say that a sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold. – Aristotle

 

So it is naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed, and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind. – Aristotle

 

Teenagers these days are out of control. They eat like pigs, they are disrespectful of adults, they interrupt and contradict their parents, and they terrorize their teachers. – Aristotle

 

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy. – Aristotle

 

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.” – Aristotle

 

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication,  because life is sweet and they are growing. – Aristotle

 

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbor to have them through envy. – Aristotle

 

Wisdom produces happiness, not in the way that medical science produces health, but in the way that health produces health. – Aristotle

 

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. – Aristotle

 

A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies. – Aristotle

 

The complete man must work, study and wrestle. – Aristotle

 

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech. – Aristotle

 

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope. – Aristotle

 

We must be neither cowardly nor rash but courageous. – Aristotle

 

Equity is the idea of justice which contravenes the written law. – Aristotle

 

Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard. – Aristotle