"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."

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More quotes from: Aristotle

• "A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one. "
• "A true friend is one soul in two bodies. "
• "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less ..."
• "All men by nature desire to know. "
• "All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. "
• "All virtue is summed up in dealing justly. "
• "Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right ..."
• "As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves ..."
• "At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice ..."
• "Bad men are full of repentance. "
• "Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age. "
• "Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. "
• "Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means ..."
• "Change in all things is sweet. "
• "Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the ..."
• "Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are ..."
• "Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. "
• "Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make ..."
• "Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. "
• "Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. "
• "Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity. "
• "Education is the best provision for old age. "
• "Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil. "
• "For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible ..."
• "Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. "
• "Friendship is essentially a partnership. "
• "Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy. "
• "Happiness depends upon ourselves. "
• "He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he ..."
• "Homer has taught all other poets the are of telling lies skillfully. "
• "Hope is a waking dream. "
• "Hope is the dream of a waking man. "
• "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for ..."
• "I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do ..."
• "If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in ..."
• "If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way. "
• "In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are ..."
• "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. "
• "In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she ..."
• "In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young ..."

• "It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken. "
• "It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully. "
• "It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views ..."
• "It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make ..."
• "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought ..."
• "It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. "
• "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. "
• "Man is by nature a political animal. "
• "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way. "
• "Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence. "
• "Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but ..."
• "Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just ..."
• "Most people would rather give than get affection. "
• "Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are ..."
• "My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my ..."
• "Nature does nothing uselessly. "
• "No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. "
• "No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness. "
• "No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the ..."
• "No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things ..."
• "Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. "
• "Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference. "
• "Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. "
• "Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history ..."
• "Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life ..."
• "Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. "
• "Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms. "
• "Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty - excusable, perhaps, when there is such great ..."
• "Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through ..."
• "That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually ..."
• "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their ..."
• "The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain. "
• "The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men. "
• "The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my ..."
• "The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead. "
• "The end of labor is to gain leisure. "
• "The gods too are fond of a joke. "
• "The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. "
• "The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best ..."

• "The law is reason, free from passion. "
• "The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. "
• "The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, ..."
• "The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that ..."
• "The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, ..."
• "The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching. "
• "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. "
• "The secret to humor is surprise. "
• "The soul never thinks without a picture. "
• "The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than ..."
• "The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom. "
• "The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things ..."
• "The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. "
• "There is no great genius without a mixture of madness. "
• "There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. "
• "Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics. "
• "This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it ..."
• "Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; ..."
• "Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then ..."
• "Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as ..."
• "To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true ..."
• "To the query, ''What is a friend?'' his reply was ''A single soul dwelling in ..."
• "Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in ..."
• "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. "
• "We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing ..."
• "We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures ..."
• "We make war that we may live in peace. "
• "We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether ..."
• "We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right ..."
• "Well begun is half done. "
• "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. "
• "What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to ..."
• "What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his ..."
• "Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. "
• "Wit is educated insolence. "
• "Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. "
• "You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality ..."
• "Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope. "