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Reason Quotes by Aristotle

44 Reason quotes by Aristotle

All Reason quotes Aristotle’s page

Aristotle notes that many ways lead to failure, yet only one path brings success when the right reason aligns. He sees passion as something that resists reason, while poetry, if clear, can be beautiful because of its size. He also suggests that a wise person uses his own reasoning to persuade.

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Law is mind without reason.

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The law is reason unaffected by desire.

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Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.

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The law is reason, free from passion.

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The fool tells me his reason; the wise man persuades me with my own.

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For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

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Irrational passions would seem to be as much a part of human nature as is reason.

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And, speaking generally, passion seems not to be amenable to reason, but only to force.

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If something's bound to happen, it will happen.. Right time, right person, and for the best reason.

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Knowledge of the fact differs from knowledge of the reason for the fact.

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Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We may conclude then that the law is…

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It is possible to fail in many ways . . . while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which…

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For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things…

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It is their character indeed that makes people who they are. But it is by reason of their actions that they are…

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He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is…

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The physician himself, if sick, actually calls in another physician, knowing that he cannot reason correctly if required to judge his own…

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Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in…

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Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason…

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But then in what way are things called good? They do not seem to be like the things that only chance to…

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Error is multiform (for evil is a form of the unlimited, as in the old Pythagorean imagery, and good of the limited),…

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There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is…

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The soul consists of two parts, one irrational and the other capable of reason. (Whether these two parts are really distinct in…

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It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but…

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The ensouled is distinguished from the unsouled by its being alive. Now since being alive is spoken of in many ways, even…

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All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem…

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The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it…

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How strange it is that Socrates, after having made the children common, should hinder lovers from carnal intercourse only, but should permit…

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So we must lay it down that the association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but…

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And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as…

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Some persons hold that, while it is proper for the lawgiver to encourage and exhort men to virtue on moral grounds, in…

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The purpose of the present study is not as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of knowledge, we are not conducting…

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A courageous person is one who faces fearful things as he ought and as reason directs for the sake of what is…

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“The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.”…

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Perhaps here we have a clue to the reason why royal rule used to exist formerly, namely the difficulty of finding enough…

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That in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it…

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The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be…

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Of means of persuading by speaking there are three species: some consist in the character of the speaker; others in the disposing…

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It is absurd to hold that a man should be ashamed of an inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not…

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Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be…

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A poet's object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably… For this…

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More by Aristotle

The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for…

Young men have strong passions and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the bodily desires, it is the sexual by which they are most…

The body is at its best between the ages of thirty and thirty-five; the mind is at its best about the age of forty-nine.

The ensouled is distinguished from the unsouled by its being alive. Now since being alive is spoken of in many ways, even if only…

Although it may be difficult in theory to know what is just and equal, the practical difficulty of inducing those to forbear who can,…

The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the…

All men by nature desire to know.

All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Give a man a poisoned fish, you feed him for the rest of…

The man who confers a favour would rather not be repaid in the same coin.

The mother of revolution and crime is poverty

Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish.

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities.

To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.

Every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.