Aristotle (384-322 BC, Aristoteles)

Along with Plato, he is considered one of the greatest thinkers of Greece, and he had a profound influence on the direction and content of Western intellectual history. The system of philosophy and science he established underpinned medieval Christian thought and Scholasticism for centuries. Western culture was Aristotelian until the late 17th century, and even after the scientific revolution that spanned hundreds of years, Aristotelianism still remained deeply rooted in Western thought.

Aristotle’s areas of study were vast, including physics, politics, ethics, rhetoric, and more, but his greatest achievements were in formal logic and zoology. While Aristotle’s zoology is now outdated, no one surpassed his research in terms of observation and theory until the 19th century. His syllogistic theory is now only a small part of formal logic, but his ethics, politics, metaphysics, and philosophy of science are still debated among contemporary philosophers.

○ Humor is the only tool by which we can test seriousness. A subject without a joke is suspicious, and a joke without serious reflection is false wit.

○ Being aware or thinking and being aware of that thinking is the same as being aware of our own existence.

○ Character reveals moral intentions by showing all the things that a human chooses or avoids.

○ Piety makes us value truth more than friendship.

○ I believe that someone who overcomes his own desires is braver than someone who conquers his enemy.

○ To delight in duty and to hate it are greatly connected with excellence of character.

○ On the stage of life, honor and reward are given to those who show good qualities.

○ People generally desire good. Not simply what the previous generations had.

○ One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one fine day; similarly, one day or a short time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.

○ Youth is quick to hope and therefore is easily deceived.

○ The nature of desire is that it knows no satisfaction, and the ordinary person pursues only the immediate satisfaction of desire and lives accordingly.

○ Only a state where all people are equal before the law is a stable state.

○ Only in justice is the order of society centered.

○ Those who know, act. Those who understand, teach.

○ The one who can rule best should rule.

○ Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

○ To be excellent is not enough to know; one must also strive to become excellent, to put this into practice.

○ There can be no great genius without a touch of madness.

○ One swallow does not make a summer.

○ We make war to live in peace.

○ If you enjoy work, the work will be well done.

○ We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

○ It is good to rise before dawn. Such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

○ We learn by doing the things we have to learn before we can do them.

○ The ideal person endures the misfortunes of life without losing dignity or decorum and uses the situation to his advantage as much as possible.

○ A friend to all is a friend to none.

○ One who does not know how to follow cannot be a good leader.

○ Misfortune shows who are true friends, and who are not.

○ Human beings acquire certain qualities by acting in a certain way repeatedly. By acting rightly, one becomes a righteous person; by acting modestly, one becomes a modest person; by acting bravely, one becomes a brave person.

○ Teachers should be respected more than parents. Parents only gave life, but teachers gave the skills to live well.

○ All human actions are caused by one or more of seven things: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

○ It is a characteristic of an educated person to be able to consider a thought without agreeing with it.

○ Education is the best provision for old age.