The Nicomachean Ethics Quotes

“The man who does not enjoy doing noble actions is not a good man at all.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Such [communistic] legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause - the wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much more quarrelling among those who have all things in common, though there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“A man without regrets cannot be cured.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Any one can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Hay 3 cosas que siempre vamos a preferir: lo bueno, lo útil y lo placentero.”
― Aristoteles, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Obrar por ignorancia y obrar con ignorancia no son lo mísmo.”
― Aristoteles, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief Good is, "that which all things aim at.”
― Aristotle, Ethics

“No more will there be any difference between 'the ideal good' and 'good' in so far as both are good.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Each man judges correctly those matters with which he is acquainted; it is of these that he is a competent critic.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Some thinkers hold that it is by nature that people become good, others that it is by habit, and others that it is by instruction. . . just as a piece of land has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish the seed, so the mind of the pupil has to be prepared in its habits if it is to enjoy and dislike the right things.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Virtue is a greater good than honour; and one might perhaps accordingly suppose that virtue rather than honour is the end of the political life.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Wisdom or intelligence and prudence are intellectual, liberality and temperance are moral virtues.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“For when people do not keep watch over the commons, it is destroyed. It results, then, that they fall into civil faction, compelling one another by force and not wishing to do what is just themselves.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“And so the good man ought to be Self-loving: because by doing what is noble he will have advantage himself and will do good to others: but the bad man ought not to be, because he will harm himself and his neighbours by following low and evil passions. In the case of the bad man, what he ought to do and what he does are at variance, but the good man does what he ought to do, because all Intellect chooses what is best for itself and the good man puts himself under the direction of Intellect.”
― Aristotle, Ethics

“the good of the individual by himself is certainly desirable enough, but that of a nation and of cities is nobler and more divine.”
― Aristotle,, Nicomachean Ethics

“Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“But to die to escape from poverty or love or anything painful is not the mark of a brave man, but rather of a coward; for it is softness to fly from what is troublesome,”
― David Ross, The Nicomachean Ethics

“To amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Happiness seems to depend on leisure, because we work to have leisure, and wage war to live in peace.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“We learn an art or craft by doing the things that we shall have to do when we have learnt it.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“In a practical syllogism, the major premise is an opinion, while the minor premise deals with particular things, which are the province of perception. Now when the two premises are combined, just as in theoretic reasoning the mind is compelled to affirm the resulting conclusion, so in the case of practical premises you are forced at once to do it.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“To Aristotle or to Plato the State is, above all, a large and powerful educative agency which gives the individual increased opportunities of self-development and greater capacities for the enjoyment of life.”
― Aristotle, Ethics

“Lawgivers make the citizens food by training them in habits of right action - this is the aim of all legislation, and if it fails to do this it is a failure.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“In everything continuous and divisible, it is possible to grasp the more, the less, and the equal, and these either in reference to the thing itself, or in relation to us.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Happiness is a kind of activity of the soul; whereas the remaining good things are either merely indispensable conditions of happiness, or are of the nature of auxiliary means, and useful instrumentally.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Actions which produce [virtue] are those which increase it, and also, if differently performed, destroy it.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics