Quotes from Aristotle

What then is a moral virtue, the result of such a process duly directed? It is no mere mood of feeling, no mere liability to emotion, no mere natural aptitude or endowment, it is a permanent state of the agent's self, or, as we might in modern phrase put it, of his will, it consists in a steady self-imposed obedience to a rule of action in certain situations which frequently recur in human life.

exhaust the public revenues by giving pay for the performance of public duties; we must prevents the growth of a pauper

One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly neither can one day, or a brief space of time, make a man blessed and happy.

We can do noble acts without ruling earth and sea; for even with moderate advantages one can act excellently.

And the avarice of mankind is insatiable; at one time two obols was pay enough; but now, when this sum has become customary, men always want more and more without end; for it is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

Thus we must advance from generalities to particulars; for it is a whole that is best known to sense-perception, (25) and a generality is a kind of whole, comprehending many things within it, like parts.

Now to investigate whether Being is one and motionless is not a contribution to the science of Nature.

What a society honors will be cultivated.

For if Being is just one, and one in the way mentioned, there is a principle no longer, since a principle must be the principle of some thing or things.

Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

refuting a merely contentious argument—a description which applies to the arguments both of Melissus and of Parmenides: their premisses are false and their conclusions do not follow.

We physicists, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion—which is indeed made plain by induction.

95% of everything you do is the result of habit.

Even subjects that are known are known only to a few

Man, if perfected is the best of all animals but when isolated he is the worst of all

Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.

I say that habit's but a long practice, friend, and this becomes men's nature in the end.

For to define the infinite you must use quantity in your formula, but not substance or quality. If then Being is both substance and quantity, it is two, not one: if only substance, it is not infinite and has no magnitude; for to have that it will have to be a quantity. Again, (5) 'one' itself, no less than 'being', is used in many senses, so we must consider in what sense the word is used when it is said that the All is one.

Even when the laws have been written down, they ought not always remain unchanged.

Now we say that (a) the continuous is one or that (b) the indivisible is one, or (c) things are said to be 'one', when their essence is one and the same, as 'liquor' and 'drink'. If (a) their One is one in the sense of continuous, it is many, (10) for the continuous is divisible ad infinitum.

And, generally speaking, all things are good which men deliberately choose to do;

it seems impossible for all things to be one.

Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly melancholics?

1) an attribute is predicated of some subject, (35) so that the subject to which 'being' is attributed will not be, as it is something different from 'being'. [186b] Something, therefore, which is not will be. Hence 'substance' will not be a predicate of anything else. For the subject cannot be a being, unless 'being' means several things, in such a way that each is something. But ex hypothesi 'being' means only one thing.