Aristotle Quotes on Vice & Virtue (12 Quotes)


    ... happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it....

    In practical matters the end is not mere speculative knowledge of what is to be done, but rather the doing of it. It is not enough to know about Virtue, then, but we must endeavor to possess it, and to use it, or to take any other steps that may make

    Nor was civil society founded merely to preserve the lives of its members but that they might live well for otherwise a state might be composed of slaves, or the animal creation... nor is it an alliance mutually to defend each other from injuries, or for a commercial intercourse. But whosoever endeavors to establish wholesome laws in a state, attends to the virtues and vices of each individual who composes it from whence it is evident, that the first care of him who would found a city, truly deserving that name, and not nominally so, must be to have his citizens virtuous.

    The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

    Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.


    All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

    Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.

    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 more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.

    The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

    Happiness may be defined as good fortune joined to virtue, or a independence, or as a life that is both agreeable and secure

    Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.


    More Aristotle Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Friendship - Nature - Education - Life - Happiness - Mind - Truth - Vice & Virtue - Actions - People - Art - Youth - Law & Regulation - Animals - Courage - Wisdom & Knowledge - Soul - Habit - View All Aristotle Quotations

    Related Authors


    Lao Tzu - Karl Marx - Immanuel Kant - George Santayana - Bertrand Russell - Arthur Schopenhauer - Robert M. Pirsig - Maimonides - Baruch Spinoza - Baron de Montesquieu


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections