Greek philosopher (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.)
For the roots of plants are analogous to what is called the mouth in an animal, being the organ by which food is admitted.
ARISTOTLE
On Youth & Old Age, Life & Death
Whoever, therefore, is unfit to live in a commonwealth, is above or below humanity.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Nor does the argument about the contrary seem to be well urged. It does not follow, they say, because pain is an evil, that pleasure is a good; for the opposite to evil may be not a good, but some other evil, and both evil and good may stand opposed to something which is neither one nor the other.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Our statements will be adequate if made with as much clearness as the matter allows.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
That which is a common concern is very generally neglected. The energies of man are excited by that which depends on himself alone, and of which he only is to reap the whole profit or glory.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Reason ... governs like a just and lawful prince, and the little community of man is thus held together and sustained.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality--namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Bad men are full of repentance.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
We ought to be able to persuade on opposite sides of a question; as also we ought in the case of arguing by syllogism: not that we should practice both, for it is not right to persuade to what is bad; but in order that the bearing of the case may not escape us, and that when another makes an unfair use of these reasonings, we may be able to solve them.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
In the case of some people, not even if we had the most accurate scientific knowledge, would it be easy to persuade them were we to address them through the medium of that knowledge; for a scientific discourse, it is the privilege of education to appreciate, and it is impossible that this should extend to the multitude.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Every political society forms, it is plain, a sort of community or partnership, instituted for the benefit of the partners. Utility is the end and aim of every such institution; and the greatest and most extensive utility is the aim of that great association, comprehending all the rest, and known by the name of a commonwealth.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
He, therefore, who first collected societies, was the greatest benefactor of mankind.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure. For the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so. In either case it is persuasive because there is somebody whom it persuades.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Wealth is clearly not the absolute good of which we are in search, for it is a utility, and only desirable as a means.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics