Famous Aristotle Quotes Explained
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath born in Stagira in 384 BC. Many of Aristotle's most-quoted lines come not from his surviving treatises but from later compilers, especially Diogenes Laërtius. Below are eight, with notes on what they assert and where they come from.
Attributed to Aristotle:
“Man is by nature a political animal.”
What it means
From the Politics, Book I. Aristotle is making a teleological claim: humans are naturally suited to life in a polis (city-state), and full human flourishing requires participation in political community. The Greek phrase zoon politikon covers ethics and civic life as well as government, so the line is broader than the modern term "political" suggests.
“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
What it means
The opening sentence of the Metaphysics, Book I. For Aristotle, the desire to understand is not learned or contingent but constitutive of human nature, evidenced by ordinary curiosity about the senses. He uses this premise to motivate the whole inquiry into first causes that follows.
“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
What it means
Reported by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers as a saying of Aristotle, rather than appearing verbatim in the Nicomachean Ethics. It captures Aristotle's view in Ethics Books VIII–IX that the highest form of friendship exists between virtuous people who recognise themselves in each other and share a common life.
“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
What it means
Attributed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laërtius. The aphorism encapsulates a recurring Aristotelian theme: habituation in virtue and learning is difficult and unwelcome at first, but produces capacities that become the source of one's mature pleasures.
“Hope is the dream of a waking man.”
p. 187
What it means
Reported by Diogenes Laërtius. Aristotle treats hope as a forward-looking projection of desire that, like a dream, is not yet bound to reality. The line is descriptive rather than dismissive: hope structures action even when its object remains uncertain.
“Anyone can become angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.”
οὕτω δὲ καὶ τὸ μὲν ὀργισθῆναι παντὸς καὶ ῥᾴδιον, καὶ τὸ δοῦναι ἀργύριον καὶ δαπανῆσαι· τὸ δ᾽ ᾧ καὶ ὅσον καὶ ὅτε καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα καὶ ὥς, οὐκέτι παντὸς οὐδὲ ῥᾴδιον
What it means
From the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II. Aristotle is illustrating his doctrine of the mean: virtue is not the absence of emotion but the calibration of emotional response to circumstance. The passage names anger specifically because it shows how multiple dimensions — target, intensity, timing, purpose, manner — must all be right at once.
Attributed to Aristotle:
“Happiness is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.”
What it means
From the Nicomachean Ethics, Book I. Aristotle is defining eudaimonia, often translated "happiness" but better rendered as "flourishing." It is the activity, not the feeling, that completes a human life, and it is sought for its own sake rather than for the sake of anything further.
Attributed to Aristotle:
“Education is the best provision for old age.”
What it means
Reported by Diogenes Laërtius. The maxim presupposes Aristotle's view that the cultivated mind retains pleasures and capacities the body loses with age; an old person without inner resources is left only with diminishing externals.