From the Nicomachean Ethics (tr. D. P. Chase) and the Politics (tr. William Ellis). Numbers are book and chapter.
“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.”Nicomachean Ethics I.1 (tr. D. P. Chase)
Everything we do is aiming at something; ask what.
“As it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”Nicomachean Ethics I.7 (tr. D. P. Chase)
A good life is measured over a lifetime.
“By doing just actions we come to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.”Nicomachean Ethics II.1 (tr. D. P. Chase)
Character is built by practice.
“… to be angry, to give money, and be expensive, is what any man can do, and easy: but to do these to the right person, in due proportion, at the right time, with a right object, and in the right manner, this is not as before what any man can do, nor is it easy.”Nicomachean Ethics II.9 (tr. D. P. Chase)
Virtue is hitting the right mark, not avoiding feeling.
“That then is perfect Friendship which subsists between those who are good and whose similarity consists in their goodness.”Nicomachean Ethics VIII.3 (tr. D. P. Chase)
The best friends make each other better.
“… man is naturally a political animal.”Politics I.2 (tr. William Ellis)
We flourish only in community.
“… he that is incapable of society, or so complete in himself as not to want it, makes no part of a city, as a beast or a god.”Politics I.2 (tr. William Ellis)
Humans are made to live together.
These circulate widely under the same name, but don’t hold up:
More famous misquotes: Quotes They Never Said
Nicomachean Ethics (Project Gutenberg) · Politics (Project Gutenberg) · Aristotle
