Aristotle Quotes

... the good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind.

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

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.

Happiness is a certain activity of soul in conformity with perfect goodness

If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.

...happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely.

For Aristotle, goodness is a kind of prospering in the precarious affair of being human.

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

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue

Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

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 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.

Virtue is nothing else than right reason

The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.

Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle in itself, is able to obey such a principle. And we call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.

All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it.

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

There must be in prudence also some master virtue.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

Virtue is not always amiable.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them - it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort - but actions which aim at honor and advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life.