Quotes about Aristotle

As long ago as 340 B.C. the Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his book On the Heavens, was able to put forward two good arguments for believing that the earth was a round sphere rather than a flat plate.

Aristotle, and most of the other Greek philosophers, on the other hand, did not like the idea of a creation because it smacked too much of divine intervention.

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

Happiness is a quality of the soul...not a function of one's material circumstances.

Opinion involves belief (for without belief in what we opine we cannot have an opinion), and in the brutes though we often find imagination we never find belief.

The highest type of intelligence, says Aristotle, manifests itself in an ability to see connections where no one has seen them before, that is, to think analogically.

Confucius said the doctrine of the mean was the highest virtue, and rare among men. The Buddhists call it the middle way. Aristotle saw moderation as the essence of virtue. I say moderation in all things, even moderation.

What women want as a class is irrelevant. I want to know about Aristotle. It is true that most women care nothing about him, and a great many male undergraduates turn pale and faint at the thought of him-but I, eccentric individual that I am, do want to know about Aristotle, and I submit that there is nothing in my shape or bodily functions which need prevent my knowing about him.

Music directly represents the passions of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.

In part, art completes what nature cannot elaborate; and in part it imitates nature.