Aristotle 384 BC – 322 BC
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher of the Ancient era, associated with Peripatetic School and Ancient Greek Philosophy.
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath born in Stagira in 384 BC. A student of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great, he founded the Peripatetic school at the Lyceum in Athens. His writings span logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, biology, and poetics, and his system of formal logic dominated Western thought for nearly two millennia. He developed virtue ethics in the Nicomachean Ethics and a teleological account of nature in the Physics. His work shaped medieval Christian and Islamic philosophy and remains foundational to Western intellectual history.
Aristotle was born in Stagira in 384 BC and at seventeen entered Plato's Academy in Athens, where he remained for twenty years. After Plato's death in 347 BC he traveled to Asia Minor, tutored the young Alexander of Macedon, and in 335 BC founded his own school, the Lyceum, where he produced an extraordinary body of work covering logic, biology, physics, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, and poetics.
Aristotle's surviving treatises — the Nicomachean Ethics, the Metaphysics, the Physics, the Politics, the Organon — are not finished books but lecture notes preserved by his successors. They lay down the conceptual framework within which Western philosophy worked for the next two thousand years: the four causes, substance and accident, form and matter, potentiality and actuality, the categories. His ethical framework treats virtue as habituated character expressed in the activity of practical wisdom, and human flourishing (eudaimonia) as the proper end of life.
Aristotle's works were preserved through the Islamic philosophical tradition — Avicenna, Averroes, al-Farabi — before returning to Latin Christendom in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, where Aquinas's synthesis of Aristotle and Christianity produced the high-medieval scholastic tradition. The early modern revolution against the Aristotelian inheritance shaped Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes; the twentieth-century revival of virtue ethics in Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre returned to him.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Greek
- Era
- Ancient
- Movements
- Peripatetic School, Ancient Greek Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Aristotle:
“Man is by nature a political animal.”
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“All men by nature desire to know.”
Metaphysics Book I, 980a.21 : Opening paragraph of Metaphysics | Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge. | The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10 -
Attributed to Aristotle:
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
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Attributed to Aristotle:
“The good for man is an activity of the soul in conformity with virtue.”
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“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
Aristotle by topic
Aristotle vs other philosophers
Three-way comparisons including Aristotle
Frequently asked about Aristotle
- When did Aristotle live?
- Aristotle was born in 384 BC and died in 322 BC.
- Where was Aristotle from?
- Aristotle was a Greek philosopher of the Ancient era.
- What philosophical movements is Aristotle associated with?
- Aristotle was associated with Peripatetic School and Ancient Greek Philosophy.
- What was Aristotle known for?
- Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath born in Stagira in 384 BC.
- How many quotes are attributed to Aristotle?
- There are 24 attributed quotations from Aristotle in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from Aristotle
These lines are widely circulated as Aristotle, but they do not appear in Aristotle's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Will Durant wrote this in his 1926 book The Story of Philosophy as his own one-sentence paraphrase summarizing Aristotle's discussion of habit and moral character in the Nicomachean Ethics. The phrasing is Durant's; it does not appear in any of Aristotle's surviving works.
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“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Despite being widely circulated as Aristotle, this exact phrasing has not been traced to any of his works. The earliest verifiable English-language appearances are from the 20th century and the original author has not been identified. The sentiment is broadly compatible with Aristotelian thought but the formulation is modern.
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“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
The injunction to 'know thyself' was a maxim inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, attributed in antiquity to figures such as Thales, Solon, and Chilon long before Aristotle. The English phrasing 'knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom' is a modern restatement and is not from Aristotle.
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“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Will Durant. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Source: Will Durant , The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6 ], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VI: Psychology and the Nature of Art: "Artistic creation, says Aristotl
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“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Elbert Hubbard. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Source: Elbert Hubbard , Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (1898), p. 370 : "If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing—court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." Other versions of the saying were repeated in several of Hub
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“Those who can, do, those who cannot, teach.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This and many similar quotes with the same general meaning are misattributed to Aristotle as a result of Twitter attribution decay. The original source of the quote remains anonymous. The oldest reference resides in the works of George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903): "Maxims for Revolutionist
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“Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery is suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination is certainly false wit.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury , Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (1709), Part 1, Sec. 5, incorrectly attributing it to Gorgias via Aristotle.
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“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
The exact phrase 'wisdom begins in wonder' does not appear in any surviving Greek text. The closest source is Plato's Theaetetus 155d, where Socrates says 'wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder' — a related but distinct claim. Aristotle's Metaphysics 982b makes a similar point. The modern English compression is not a direct translation of either.
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“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
This line does not appear in any of Aristotle's surviving works, despite its frequent attribution to him on social media and in motivational literature. The Quote Investigator has documented its appearance in print no earlier than the 1990s, with no traceable connection to ancient sources. The diction and metaphor are both modern English.
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“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Aristotle does discuss the unity of substantial form in Metaphysics VIII.6, where he writes that 'the totality is something besides the parts' — but this is not the same claim. The modern slogan 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' originates in early twentieth-century Gestalt psychology, particularly the work of Kurt Koffka, who actually argued the slightly different point that 'the whole is something else than the sum of its parts.'
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“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
Despite frequent attribution to Aristotle, this line does not appear in the Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, or any other surviving Aristotelian text. It is broadly compatible with Aristotle's discussion of pleasure as the completion of virtuous activity in NE Book X, but the formulation is modern English. The attribution likely arose from loose paraphrase rather than translation.
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“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution.”
The first sentence echoes a sentiment Aristotle expresses, but the rest of the passage — 'high intention, sincere effort, intelligent execution' — is twentieth-century corporate motivational language and is not from any Aristotelian text. The full version most often appears in business and self-help contexts. Aristotle's actual discussion of excellence in the Nicomachean Ethics treats it as habituated disposition rather than as the result of episodic effort.
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“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.”
The line — 'nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit' — appears in Seneca's De Tranquillitate Animi 17.10, where Seneca attributes the sentiment to Aristotle. No surviving Aristotelian text contains it. Seneca's report may be drawing on the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata XXX, which discusses the connection between melancholy and intellectual achievement, or may simply be a misattribution of Aristotle's contemporary.
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“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
The line appears in Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers V.20, where it is attributed to Aristotle as one of his sayings. No exact equivalent appears in Aristotle's surviving works. The Nicomachean Ethics treats friendship at length and contains related ideas (a friend is 'another self' in NE IX.4) but not the specific formulation that has become widely circulated.
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“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
The line appears in Rousseau's Émile (1762): 'La patience est amère, mais son fruit est doux.' It is regularly misattributed to Aristotle, perhaps because the broader sentiment about virtue and difficulty is broadly Aristotelian. The Aristotelian corpus contains nothing like this exact formulation.
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“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts not breaths; // In feelings, not in figures on a dial. // We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives // Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
This is actually from the poem "We live in deeds..." by Philip James Bailey . This explains the strange pattern of capitalization.
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“Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.”
Widely attributed since the mid to late 19th century, this apparently derives from a gloss or commentary on the following passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC), Book 1, Ch. XI (Bekker No. 1100b.13–14): ὅμως δὲ καὶ ἐν τούτοις διαλάμπει τὸ καλόν, ἐπειδὰν φέρῃ τις εὐκόλως πολλὰς καὶ μεγάλας ἀτυχίας, μὴ δι᾽ ἀναλγησίαν, ἀλλὰ γεννάδας ὢν καὶ μεγαλόψυχος. εἰ δ᾽ εἰσὶν αἱ ἐνέργειαι κύριαι τῆς ζωῆς, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, οὐδεὶς ἂν γένοιτο τῶν μακαρίων ἄθλιος But nevertheless, even in these [misfortunes], nobility of the soul is conspicuous, when a man bears and digests many and great misfortunes, not from insensibility, but because he is high spirited and magnanimous. But if the energies…
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“Widely attributed since the mid to late 19th century, this apparently derives from a gloss or commentary on the following passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC), Book 1, Ch. XI (Bekker No. 1100b.13–14):”
ὅμως δὲ καὶ ἐν τούτοις διαλάμπει τὸ καλόν, ἐπειδὰν φέρῃ τις εὐκόλως πολλὰς καὶ μεγάλας ἀτυχίας, μὴ δι᾽ ἀναλγησίαν, ἀλλὰ γεννάδας ὢν καὶ μεγαλόψυχος. εἰ δ᾽ εἰσὶν αἱ ἐνέργειαι κύριαι τῆς ζωῆς, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, οὐδεὶς ἂν γένοιτο τῶν μακαρίων ἄθλιος But nevertheless, even in these [misfortunes], nobility of the soul is conspicuous, when a man bears and digests many and great misfortunes, not from insensibility, but because he is high spirited and magnanimous. But if the energies are the things that constitute the bliss or the misery of life, as we said, no happy man can ever become miserable. A New Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (1835), 3rd. ed., Oxford: J. Vincent. p. 30…
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“ὅμως δὲ καὶ ἐν τούτοις διαλάμπει τὸ καλόν, ἐπειδὰν φέρῃ τις εὐκόλως πολλὰς καὶ μεγάλας ἀτυχίας, μὴ δι᾽ ἀναλγησίαν, ἀλλὰ γεννάδας ὢν καὶ μεγαλόψυχος. εἰ δ᾽ εἰσὶν αἱ ἐνέργειαι κύριαι τῆς ζωῆς, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, οὐδεὶς ἂν γένοιτο τῶν μακαρίων ἄθλιος”
But nevertheless, even in these [misfortunes], nobility of the soul is conspicuous, when a man bears and digests many and great misfortunes, not from insensibility, but because he is high spirited and magnanimous. But if the energies are the things that constitute the bliss or the misery of life, as we said, no happy man can ever become miserable. A New Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (1835), 3rd. ed., Oxford: J. Vincent. p. 30 Nevertheless even under these [misfortunes] the force of nobility shines out, when a man bears calmly many great disasters, not from insensibility, but because he is generous and of a great soul. Setting happiness then, as we do, not in the outward…
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“Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas .”
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. Variant: Plato is my friend, but the truth is more my friend. A similar statement was attributed to Aristotle in antiquityː "Φίλος μὲν Σωκράτης, ἀλλὰ φιλτέρα ἀλήθεια." [" Socrates is a friend, but truth is a greater."] — Ammonius Hermiae , Life of Aristotle (as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 527). The variant mentioned above may possibly be derived from a reduction of a statement known to have been made by Isaac Newton , who at the head of notes he titled Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae ( Certain Philosophical Questions ) wrote in Latin: "Amicus Plato— amicus Aristoteles— magis amica veritas"… (Disputed.)
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“Remember that time slurs over everything, let all deeds fade, blurs all writings and kills all memories. Except are only those which dig into the hearts of men by love.”
"The Letter of Aristotle to Alexander on the Policy toward the Cities", translated from Lettre d'Aristote à Alexandre sur la politique envers les cités , an Arabic text translated and edited by Józef Bielawski and Marian Plezia (1970), p. 72; translated from an ancient Greek text that survived only in Arabic translation, there is little acceptance that this is an authentic letter of Aristotle. (Disputed.)
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“Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for goals.”
Attributed to Aristotle in Bernhoff A. Dahl, Optimize Your Life! , Trionics International Inc., 2005, p. 111. (Disputed.)