Aristotle Quotes

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, Which rests wholly upon yourself. So, to praise others for their virtues Can but encourage one's own efforts.

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.

There is a good ear, in some men, that draws supplies to virtue out of very indifferent nutriment.

The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.

Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather.

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us, at all ages, are constantly striving for.

Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it; People become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarily, we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.

The walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life.

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself.

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

To be good, we must do good; and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

It is by doing good that we become good.

I've always been a good person, but I wanna be, like, the best person.

Character teaches above our wills.

Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by actions.

Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled ; and by doing brave acts, we become brave.

Unless education promotes character making, unless it helps men to be more moral, more just to their fellows, more law abiding, more discriminatingly patriotic and public spirited, it is not worth the trouble taken to furnish it.

It is never too early to try and plant [good principles] in a child, and never too late to cultivate them in the most neglected person.

Let a man begin in earnest with "I ought," and he will end, by God's grace, if he persevere, with "I will." Let him force himself to abound in all small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all these for God's sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of his soul.

The greatest work in all the world is the building of men and women of character. Without character there is not much that is worthwhile.