20 quotes from Aristotle That Will Shape Your Character

It’s always a good time for self-improvement

The place where he taught Alexander the Great lies couple of minutes away from me.

A student of Plato.

But the student became a teacher.

The fields he covered are so many that I will just copy-paste them from Wikipedia because I'm THAT amazed.

His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics.

Yes, all these words are Greek, and you know them all. Yes, he covered a big portion of everything we know so far. The least we can do is learn a little bit more.

As I did with the other “20 quotes” articles, I’ll highlight the quotes I inherited in my life. Maybe you should highlight your favorites too.

1. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
2. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
3. “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
4. “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”
5. “Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
6. “Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”
7. “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives — choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
8. “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim, and end of human existence.”
9. “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”
10. “To perceive is to suffer.”
11. “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
12. “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differs from the dead.”
13. “The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.”
14. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
15. “To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.”
16. “Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain.”
17. “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to and therefore does not partake of society is either a beast or a god. ”
18. “All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.”
19. “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
20. “Happiness is a state of activity.”

He is my biggest influence without any doubt.

If your eyes are closed to the truth, he will prepare you with what there is to see.

If your eyes are open to the truth, he will guide you to digest it easier.

We are all thinkers in the game of life. We only have to tame the way we think, so we won’t be consumed by negative thoughts and discomfort.

Thanks for giving this a read. Be sure to keep your eyes open and try to evolve. For more philosophical thoughts, make sure to follow me.