Aristotle Quotes About Virtue

We have collected for you the TOP of Aristotle's best quotes about Virtue! Here are collected all the quotes about Virtue starting from the birthday of the Philosopher – 384 BC! We hope you will be inspired to new achievements with our constantly updated collection of quotes. At the moment, this page contains 126 sayings of Aristotle about Virtue. We will be happy if you share our collection of quotes with your friends on social networks!
All quotes by Aristotle: Accidents Acting Adultery Adventure Adversity Affairs Affection Age Aids Ambition Anger Animals Appearance Arguing Art Atheism Beauty Being Happy Being The Best Belief Best Friends Birth Bravery Business Character Charity Children Choices College Education Communism Community Conflict Conformity Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Courage Creation Creativity Crime Culture Decisions Democracy Depression Desire Destiny Difficulty Dignity Discipline Diversity Doubt Dreams Drinking Duty Earth Economy Education Effort Emotions Enemies Energy Envy Equality Ethics Evidence Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Eyes Failing Failure Fairness Family Fate Fathers Fear Feelings Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Gardens Genius Giving Goals God Gold Goodness Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greek Growth Habits Happiness Happy Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heaven History Honesty Honor Hope Human Nature Humanity Ignorance Imagination Imitation Immortality Injustice Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Intuition Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Laughter Leadership Learning Liberalism Liberty Life Literature Living Together Logic Love Love And Friendship Lying Madness Making A Difference Making Money Management Mankind Math Mathematics Meaning Of Life Meditation Memories Metaphor Metaphysics Middle Class Military Moderation Monarchy Money Morality Mothers Motivation Motivational Myth Nature Neighbors Obedience Observation Offense Office Old Age Opinions Overcoming Pain Pain And Pleasure Parents Parties Passion Past Peace Perception Perfection Performing Perseverance Persuasion Philanthropy Philosophy Plato Pleasure Politicians Politics Positive Positivity Poverty Power Praise Productivity Property Prosperity Prudence Purpose Quality Rebellion Relationships Religion Representation Responsibility Revenge Revolution Rhetoric Royalty Running Sacrifice School Science Self Control Self Esteem Seven Simplicity Slavery Slaves Social Justice Society Son Soul Spirituality Sports Spring Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Talent Teachers Teaching Temperance Time Tragedy Train Training True Friends Truth Tyranny Understanding Unity Values Victory Virtue War Water Wealth Wife Winning Wisdom Wit Work Writing Youth more...
  • Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.

  • He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.

  • Definition of tragedy: A hero destroyed by the excess of his virtues

  • For as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions; but they will not so soon flow from anything else as from the disagreement between virtue and vice, and next to that between poverty and riches.

    Aristotle (2015). “Politics”, p.164, Sheba Blake Publishing
  • Our virtues are voluntary (and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral dispositions, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a certain kind), it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary in the same manner as our virtues.

    Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.65, Wordsworth Editions
  • Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others.

  • The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.

    Aristotle, Aeterna Press (2015). “Nicomachean Ethics”, p.43, Aeterna Press
  • A state of the soul is either (1) an emotion, (2) a capacity, or (3) a disposition; virtue therefore must be one of these three things.

    Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.38, Wordsworth Editions
  • Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

    Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.364, Simon and Schuster
  • Greatness of Soul seems therefore to be as it were a crowning ornament of the virtues; it enhances their greatness, and it cannot exist without them. Hence it is hard to be truly great-souled, for greatness of soul is impossible without moral nobility.

    Aristotle (1934). “The Nicomachean ethics”
  • ...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.

  • Excellence or virtue in a man will be the disposition which renders him a good man and also which will cause him to perform his function well.

    Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.39, Wordsworth Editions
  • For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.

    Aristotle, Hugh Griffith (2009). “Aristotle”, p.201, Collector's Library
  • There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices, - (1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government.

    Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.338, Simon and Schuster
  • Happiness comes from theperfect practice of virtue.

  • Purpose ... is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts.

    Aristotle (1869). “The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle”, p.65
  • The happy man . . . will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way.

    Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.19, Wordsworth Editions
  • Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.

    Aristotle (1869). “The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle”, p.56
  • If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen - thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.

    Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.275, Simon and Schuster
  • ...happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely.

    Aristotle (1987). “A New Aristotle reader”
  • Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; . . . it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything.

    Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.46, Wordsworth Editions
  • 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.

    Aristotle (1885). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.185, Jazzybee Verlag
  • Whereas 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, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

    Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.373, Simon and Schuster
  • Virtue also depends on ourselves. And so also does vice. For where we are free to act we are also free to refrain from acting, and where we are able to say No we are also able to say Yes; if therefore we are responsible for doing a thing when to do it right, we are also responsible for not doing it when not to do it is wrong, and if we are responsible for rightly not doing a thing, we are also responsible for wrongly doing it.

    Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.62, Wordsworth Editions
  • The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

    Aristotle (1962). “Nicomachean Ethics”
  • Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

    Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.299, Simon and Schuster
  • There must be in prudence also some master virtue.

    Aristotle (1850). “The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Tr. with Notes, Original & Selected; an Analytical Introduction; and Questions for the Use of Students”, p.162
  • Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

  • ...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

  • Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

    Aristotle, Terence Irwin, Gail Fine (1995). “Aristotle: Selections”, p.373, Hackett Publishing
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    Aristotle quotes about: Accidents Acting Adultery Adventure Adversity Affairs Affection Age Aids Ambition Anger Animals Appearance Arguing Art Atheism Beauty Being Happy Being The Best Belief Best Friends Birth Bravery Business Character Charity Children Choices College Education Communism Community Conflict Conformity Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Courage Creation Creativity Crime Culture Decisions Democracy Depression Desire Destiny Difficulty Dignity Discipline Diversity Doubt Dreams Drinking Duty Earth Economy Education Effort Emotions Enemies Energy Envy Equality Ethics Evidence Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Eyes Failing Failure Fairness Family Fate Fathers Fear Feelings Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Gardens Genius Giving Goals God Gold Goodness Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greek Growth Habits Happiness Happy Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heaven History Honesty Honor Hope Human Nature Humanity Ignorance Imagination Imitation Immortality Injustice Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Intuition Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Laughter Leadership Learning Liberalism Liberty Life Literature Living Together Logic Love Love And Friendship Lying Madness Making A Difference Making Money Management Mankind Math Mathematics Meaning Of Life Meditation Memories Metaphor Metaphysics Middle Class Military Moderation Monarchy Money Morality Mothers Motivation Motivational Myth Nature Neighbors Obedience Observation Offense Office Old Age Opinions Overcoming Pain Pain And Pleasure Parents Parties Passion Past Peace Perception Perfection Performing Perseverance Persuasion Philanthropy Philosophy Plato Pleasure Politicians Politics Positive Positivity Poverty Power Praise Productivity Property Prosperity Prudence Purpose Quality Rebellion Relationships Religion Representation Responsibility Revenge Revolution Rhetoric Royalty Running Sacrifice School Science Self Control Self Esteem Seven Simplicity Slavery Slaves Social Justice Society Son Soul Spirituality Sports Spring Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Talent Teachers Teaching Temperance Time Tragedy Train Training True Friends Truth Tyranny Understanding Unity Values Victory Virtue War Water Wealth Wife Winning Wisdom Wit Work Writing Youth

    Aristotle

    • Born: 384 BC
    • Died: 322 BC
    • Occupation: Philosopher