Aristotle Quotes

The virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.

It is impossible to design a constitution that is so perfect that no one has to be good.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

I would like to have insights into things like government, all those big ideas that you brought up that I simply don't have ideas about. I would like to be able to since so many people discuss them, but I don't want to work at them. I don't think my ambition is that strong in that direction.

You may not think about politics, but politics think about you.

The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing.

The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.

No matter what theory of the origin of government you adopt, if you follow it out to its legitimate conclusions it will bring you face to face with the moral law.

Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?

The word "politics" comes from the Greek politeia which had to do with the citizenry, not the government.

Socialism isn't just a list of economic prescriptions for government. Perhaps above all, socialism is a moral view.

The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.

What is the purpose of the government? When you examine most political debates, you usually find that question at the bedrock. What makes a government good? What makes one effective? What is government supposed to do, and what shouldn’t it do? The reason we disagree so much about politics is often because we hold different theories about what the purpose of government is.

A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not mere companionship.

To be honest, politics is so weird. I think it's more heavy than religion.

In the many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, although mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained. Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Governments arise either out of the people or over the people.

Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.

You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.

Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments.

There is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue.

Politics and life go hand in hand.

The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also; only of a less intense kind.

It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

The State is the sum total of the sacrifice, on its behalf, of its members.