Aristotle quotes: what he really said and what he didn't
The top 3 according to 191 votes from people: All men by nature desire to know. · Nature does nothing in vain. · One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day.. (Updated Jun 17, 2020.)
From 'Man is by nature a political animal' and 'One swallow does not make a summer' to the famous line about excellence being a habit, which is really Will Durant's: Aristotle's best-known sayings, with the work they come from.
Top 11
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1
All men by nature desire to know.
Metaphysics, opening line.
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2
Nature does nothing in vain.
Politics, book I, and his works on animals.
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3
One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day.
Nicomachean Ethics, book I.
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4
Man is by nature a political animal.
Politics, book I.
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5
Hope is a waking dream.
Reported by Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Philosophers, book V.
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6
Piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.
Nicomachean Ethics, book I, on disagreeing with Plato; the source of 'Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas'.
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7
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Misattributed: Will Durant's 1926 summary of Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy.
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8
A friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Reported by Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Philosophers, book V.
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9
We make war that we may live in peace.
Nicomachean Ethics, book X.
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10
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Misattributed: a loose 20th-century paraphrase of the Nicomachean Ethics, not his words.
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11
Virtue is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.
Nicomachean Ethics, book II.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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Comments (1)
The Durant one gets me every time, it's on half the gym walls in the country. Thanks for the source.