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384 BC–322 BC Greece
Aristotle (Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotelēs; 384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the teacher of Theophrastus and founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition.
Greece Academics Biologists Logicians Mathematicians Also known as: Nicomachean Ethics
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[I]t is impossible that each of the elements should be infinite. For that is body which has interval on all sides; and that is infinite which has extension without bound.
[U]niversal is known according to reason, but that which is particular, according to sense...
[T]hey pronounce absurdly who thus speak, as the Pythagoreans assert: for at the same time they make the infinite to be essence, and distribute it into parts.
Nature does not do anything in vain.
Philosophy is the science of truth.
Practical life is not necessarily directed toward other people, as some think; and it is not the case that practical thoughts are only those which result from action for the sake of what ensues. On the contrary, much more practical are those mental activities and reflections which have their goal in themselves and take place for their own sake.
The roots of education ... are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
The majority of mankind and people who lack refinement conceive it to be pleasure, and hence they approve a life of sensual enjoyment. (Bk. 1, Chapter III)
He who on conviction does and pursues and chooses what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as a result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he is easier to cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind.
The brain is not responsible for any of the sensations.. the correct view [is] that the seat and source of sensation is the region of the heart….the motions of pleasure and pain, and generally all sensation plainly have their source in the heart.
It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens: upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians, and the servants of the laws.
If every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, [...]; if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.
[P]ure light, such as that from the sun has no color, but is made colored by its degradation when interacting with objects having specific properties which then produce color.
I have gained this by philosophy ... I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law.
For well-being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer, and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep; and its main front would face the south.
If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal.
Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.
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.
The third kind of life is the life of contemplation (Bk. 1, Chapter III)
But voice is a certain sound of that which is animated; for nothing inanimate emits a voice; but they are said to emit a voice from similitude, as a pipe, and a lyre, and such other inanimate things, have extension, modulation, and dialect; for thus it appears, because voice, also, has these.
Book II: On the soul; In: Aristotle (1808)
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