Aristotle Quotes

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.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

There is also something excellent in every audience,--the capacity of virtue. They are ready to be beatified.

These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

Now the goodness that we have to consider is clearly human goodness, since the good or happiness which we set out to seek was human good and human happiness. But human goodness means in our view excellence of soul, not excellence of body.

Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.

Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them.

The good man is the only excellent musician, because he gives forth a perfect harmony not with a lyre or other instrument but with the whole of his life.

What the great learning teaches, is to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence.

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues.

Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.

The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of, a virtuous life.

We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by a certain perfection of moral activity.

Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is well known. If his morality is judged to be the capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and self-denial (which, when continuous and grown habitual, are called holiness)

The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.

The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.

Hast thou virtue? acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.

Birth is nothing where virtue is not

Nothing teaches character better than generosity.

Some are born virtuous, some become virtuous. To be good by nature is indeed fortunate but to become good is like walking on a double-edged sword; it takes a longer time and is more painful.

Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by [Moral] Virtue.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.