Authors / Aristotle

Aristotle quotes

384 BC–322 BC · Greek philosopher

Plato's student and Alexander the Great's tutor wrote on ethics, politics, biology and logic. His most-shared "quote" about excellence being a habit is actually a 1926 summary by the historian Will Durant.

3 real · 2 not theirs

Really theirs

3 quotes traced to Aristotle's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced

Man is by nature a political animal.

Source: Politics, Book I, ch. 2

Sourced

All men by nature desire to know.

Source: Metaphysics, Book I, ch. 1

Sourced

One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Source: Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, ch. 7, tr. W. D. Ross

Not theirs

2 famous lines credited to Aristotle that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Not theirs

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Actually: Will Durant summarising Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy (1926).

Misquoted

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

The real words: Not in Aristotle. His real line (Nicomachean Ethics I.3) is about expecting only as much precision as a subject allows.