Quotes from Aristotle

He is best of all who of himself conceiveth all things;   Good again is he too who can adopt a good suggestion;   But whoso neither of himself conceiveth nor hearing from   another   Layeth it to heart;—he is a useless man.

It is therefore not of small moment whether we are trained from adulthood in one set of habits or another; on the contrary it is of very great, or rather supreme importance.

Anyone who has no need of anybody but himself is either a beast or a God.

Moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes; chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

Excellence is not an act, but habit.

I have spoken, you have heard, you have the facts, judge

Nevertheless, Rhetoric is useful, because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible.

We cannot be prudent without being good.

The orator persuades by moral character when his speech is delivered in such a manner as to render him worthy of confidence; for we feel confidence in a greater degree and more readily in persons of worth in regard to everything in general, but where there is no certainty and there is room for doubt, our confidence is absolute. But this confidence must be due to the speech itself, not to any preconceived idea of the speaker's character;

The ideal man, takes joy in doing favours for others; but he feels ashamed to have others do favours for him. For it is a mark of superiority to confer a kindness; but it is a mark of inferiority to receive it.

The self-indulgent man, then, craves for all pleasant things or those that are most pleasant . . . Hence he is pained both when he fails to get them and when he is craving for them, for appetite involves pain.