Skip to content

Know Quote by Aristotle

“It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.” quote by Aristotle — Download Open image

“It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.”

About This Quote

Source Treatise: Rhetoric, 4th century BC

Effective communication requires both right content and right delivery

In simple terms: Both what you say and how you say it matter

Key Takeaway

Consider both message and delivery

Themes

communication ethics rhetoric

Mood

thoughtful analytical

Type

philosophical educational

When to use this quote

public speaking
teaching
negotiations
writing

Key Concepts

clarity persuasion tone

Questions to Reflect On

What balance do you strike between content and style?
How can style enhance truth?

A Different Perspective

Overemphasis on style can obscure substance

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.9 out of 5 (8 ratings)

Know Know how Know Ought Know Say Knows Ought Say Know Sufficient Sufficient Know

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…

Image

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

Image

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.

Image

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

Image

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

Image

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

Image

All men by nature desire to know.

Image

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

Image

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

Image

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

Image

The mother of revolution and crime is poverty

Image

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

Image

Explore all 1,545 Aristotle quotes

More Know quotes

I actually think acting is a form of self-hypnosis. You have to be hyper, hyper aware of what's going on around you. You have…

Image

“To know someone, to be known. That matters more than he'd ever thought it would.”

Julianna Baggott

Image

Animals know nothing of themselves, and they also know nothing of the world.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Image

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don't know nothing. I mean, that's my life lesson.

Image

If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image

It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working, you know, when you're really not working very hard. I mean, I'm very lazy. So…

Image

That's something a lot of folks don't know about me - I'm pretty darn funny.

Michael Jai White

Image

Don't get too attached to someone you know you can't be together with.

Anurag Prakash Ray

Image

I know what you're thinking... and you oughtta be ashamed of yourself.

Image

I would have done well as a gypsy child, I think. A circus baby. I coulda played a great street urchin or ragamuffin. Or…

Image

You will never know just how beautiful you are to me.

Image

I know how hard it is to be a woman, especially a black woman.

Image

Browse all 22,300 Know quotes