Aristotle Quotes about Science

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

Aristotle

Truth, Science, Men

Philosophy begins with wonder.

Aristotle

Philosophy, Science, Technology

The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.

Aristotle

Science, Deviation

He who sees things grow from the beginning will have the best view of them.

Aristotle

Nature, Science, Views

Salt water when it turns into vapour becomes sweet, and the vapour does not form salt water when it condenses again. This I know by experiment. The same thing is true in every case of the kind: wine and all fluids that evaporate and condense back into a liquid state become water. They all are water modified by a certain admixture, the nature of which determines their flavour.

Aristotle

Sweet, Wine, Science

Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.582, Princeton University Press

It is clear, then, that the earth must be at the centre and immovable, not only for the reasons already given, but also because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite straight upward return to the point from which they started, even if they are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations then it is clear that the earth does not move and does not lie elsewhere than at the centre.

Aristotle

Lying, Moving, Science

"The Essential Aristotle".

It is no part of a physician's business to use either persuasion or compulsion upon the patients.

Aristotle

Science, Physicians, Use

Politics VII.ii

The physician heals, Nature makes well.

Aristotle

Nature, Science, Physicians

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

There is more evidence to prove that saltness [of the sea] is due to the admixture of some substance, besides that which we have adduced. Make a vessel of wax and put it in the sea, fastening its mouth in such a way as to prevent any water getting in. Then the water that percolates through the wax sides of the vessel is sweet, the earthy stuff, the admixture of which makes the water salt, being separated off as it were by a filter.

Aristotle

Sweet, Science, Sea

Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.583, Princeton University Press

It is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are energeia [energy], while others are products which are additional to the energeia.

Aristotle

Hard Work, Science, Differences

The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

Aristotle

Science, Engineering, Order

Aristotle (2012). “The Metaphysics”, p.202, Roger Bishop Jones

The energy or active exercise of the mind constitutes life.

Aristotle

Life, Exercise, Science

We, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion.

Aristotle

Science, Hands, Granted

Aristotle (2016). “Pocket Aristotle”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

A line is not made up of points. ... In the same way, time is not made up parts considered as indivisible 'nows.' Part of Aristotle's reply to Zeno's paradox concerning continuity.

Aristotle

Science, Lines, Way

He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin ... will obtain the clearest view of them.

Aristotle

Science, Views, Growth

Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.14, Aristotle

The body is most fully developed from thirty to thirty-five years of age, the mind at about forty-nine.

Aristotle

Science, Years, Mind

Rhetoric II.xiv

Here and elsewhere we shall not obtain the best insight into things until we actually see them growing from the beginning.

Aristotle

Science, Growth, Growing

...we are all inclined to ... direct our inquiry not by the matter itself, but by the views of our opponents; and, even when interrogating oneself, one pushes the inquiry only to the point at which one can no longer offer any opposition. Hence a good inquirer will be one who is ready in bringing forward the objections proper to the genus, and that he will be when he has gained an understanding of the differences.

Aristotle

Science, Differences, Views

Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle (2012). “The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle”, p.1731, Modern Library

The male has more teeth than the female in mankind, and sheep and goats, and swine. This has not been observed in other animals. Those persons which have the greatest number of teeth are the longest lived; those which have them widely separated, smaller, and more scattered, are generally more short lived.

Aristotle

Science, Animal, Sheep

Aristotle, Johann Gottlob Schneider (1862). “Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten Books”, p.31

Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth's] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.

Aristotle

Moving, Cutting, Science

Since we think we understand when we know the explanation, and there are four types of explanation (one, what it is to be a thing; one, that if certain things hold it is necessary that this does; another, what initiated the change; and fourth, the aim), all these are proved through the middle term.

Aristotle

Science, Thinking, Doe

Aristotle, (2014). “The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, One-Volume Digital Edition”, p.277, Princeton University Press

The same thing may have all the kinds of causes, e.g. the moving cause of a house is the art or the builder, the final cause is the function it fulfils, the matter is earth and stones, and the form is the definitory formula.

Aristotle

Art, Moving, Science

Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.1574, Princeton University Press

Hippocrates is an excellent geometer but a complete fool in everyday affairs.

Aristotle

Science, Engineering, Everyday

Nature does nothing without a purpose. In children may be observed the traces and seeds of what will one day be settled psychological habits, though psychologically a child hardly differs for the time being from an animal.

Aristotle

Nature, Children, Science

Historia Animalium VIII.I (transl. D. W. Thompson)

For any two portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the less, just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size.

Aristotle

Science, Fire, Two

Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.505, Princeton University Press