Aristotle Political Quotations

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.

A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

.. for desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition.

Perhaps here we have a clue to the reason why royal rule used to exist formerly, namely the difficulty of finding enough men of outstanding virtue ..

A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.

It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

Phronimos, possessing practical wisdom . But the only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom; all the others must be possessed, so it seems, both by rulers and ruled. The virtue of a person being ruled is not practical wisdom but correct opinion; he is rather like a person who makes the pipes, while the ruler is the one who can play them.

To leave the number of births unrestricted, as is done in most states, inevitably causes poverty among the citizens, and poverty produces crime and faction.

The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it 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.

People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.

...one Greek city state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged.

A human being is a naturally political [animal].

The state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

Nature, as we say, does nothing without some purpose; and for thepurpose of making mana political animal she has endowed him alone among the animals with the power of reasoned speech.

. . . Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.