ARISTOTLE

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

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

We are what we repeatedly do.

Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

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

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

A student of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Aristotle shared his teacher’s reverence for human knowledge but revised many of Plato’s ideas by emphasizing methods rooted in observation and experience. Aristotle surveyed and systematized nearly all the extant branches of knowledge and provided the first ordered accounts of biology, psychology, physics, and literary theory. In addition, Aristotle invented the field known as formal logic, pioneered zoology, and addressed virtually every major philosophical problem known during his time. Known to medieval intellectuals as simply “the Philosopher,” Aristotle is possibly the greatest thinker in Western history and, historically, perhaps the single greatest influence on Western intellectual development.