Quotes about Aristotle

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

The Galileo saga is typically told as a conflict between science and religion. But in reality it was a conflict among Christians over the correct philosophy of nature. Was it Aristotle's quality or Galileo's quantity? Galileo's victory was the triumph of the idea that the nature is constructed on a mathematical blueprint.

Also, that which is desirable in itself is more desirable than what is desirable per accidens.

The quantity comes from the efficient cause but the quality comes from the formal cause.

Aristotle had discovered only half the principle of inertia—that a body at rest remains at rest unless moved by another—but not the other half—that a body in motion remains in motion unless acted on by another.

Surely in the case of Aristotle the immutability of the divine being was due to its emptiness and internal immobility. No greater contrast is thinkable between the unmoved noesis noeeseoos of Aristotle and the Christian God. This appears particularly from the fact that the Bible does not hesitate to attribute all manner of activity to God...Herein lies the glory of the Christian doctrine of God, that the unchangeable one is in control of the change of the universe.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

What is the highest of all goods achievable by action? ...both the general run of man and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness ...but with regard to what happiness is they differ.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

It is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are energeia [energy], while others are products which are additional to the energeia.

What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.  Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out.

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