Aristotle Political Philosophy Quotes

#1. Lovers of freedom are, of course, also by and large lovers of tolerance and permissiveness. Being tolerant and permissive, especially toward others, but even at times toward oneself, are virtues. But as virtues, tolerance and permissiveness always have limits -- there is always the intolerable and the impermissible. Unlimited tolerance and permissiveness are not virtues; in the end, they are even enemies of freedom. Freedom, therefore, is not wholly opposed to coercion. Freedom even consists, in part, in certain kinds of coercion. Moral autonomy consists in rational self-coercion, civil freedom in rightful external social (state) coercion. #Quote by Allen W. Wood

#2. These are the three things - volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm - that a speaker bears in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually win prizes in the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now count for more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public life, owing to the defects of our political institutions. #Quote by Aristotle.

#3. The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all. #Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli

#4. The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical. #Quote by Henry George

#5. The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity. #Quote by Aristotle.

#6. in modern philosophy, the first glimpse of the true view of the conception of 'might is right' as applying to government is to be found in the political writings of Spinoza. Briefly it is this. Government, as such, has a limited sphere of activity. This limitation is self-limitation; and the proper province of government comprehends all that it is able to accomplish. Government may not attempt that which it is unable to achieve; that which it is able to achieve is its true and proper sphere of action. Ask and answer the question, What can government do? and we have solved the problem of what it ought to do, that is, we have defined its limits and discovered its particular nature. Its might is its right. #Quote by Michael Oakeshott

#7. What proved so attractive was that terrorism had become a kind of philosophy through which to express frustration, resentment, and blind hatred, a kind of political expressionism which used bombs to express oneself, which watched delightedly the publicity given to resounding deeds and was absolutely willing to pay the price of life for having succeeded in forcing the recognition of one's existence on the normal strata of society. #Quote by Hannah Arendt

#8. ...our great modern error is the belief that we must invariably give up one thing in order to have another. But it is possible, for instance, to find comfort, pleasure, and beauty in food, clothing, and shelter. It is possible to find pleasure and beauty and even "recreation" in work. It is possible to have farms that do not waste and poison the natural world. #Quote by Wendell Berry

#9. Alternative facts and fake news are just other names for propaganda #Quote by Johnny Corn

#10. I mean, you can't be a revolutionary after the revolution, can you? Didn't we all struggle so that kids like Lil wouldn't have to? #Quote by Cory Doctorow

#11. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society. #Quote by Aristotle.

#12. Anarchy is law and freedom without force.
Despotism is law and force without freedom.
Barbarism force without freedom and law.
Republicanism is force with freedom and law. #Quote by Immanuel Kant

#13. I very much dislike doctrinaire liberals - they want to own your minds. And I don't like reactionary conservatives. I like to face issues in terms of conditions and not in terms of someone's inborn political philosophy. #Quote by Carl Albert

#14. Is it just possible,' he sighed, 'that the most vigorous and obldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators? #Quote by Sinclair Lewis

#15. I don't want to live and die a lie. So I sacrifice... I try... I live against the wind and pretend to fly. #Quote by Mike Bhangu

#16. Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, whom Homer denounces - the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts. #Quote by Aristotle.

#17. Any philosophy, whether of a religious or political nature - and sometimes the dividing line is hard to determine - fights less for the negative destruction of the opposing ideology than for the positive promotion of its own. Hence its struggle is less defensive than offensive. It therefore has the advantage even in determining the goal, since this goal represents the victory of its own idea, while, conversely,it is hard to determine when the negative aim of the destruction of a hostile doctrine may be regarded as achieved and assured. For this reason alone, the philosophy's offensive will be more systematic and also more powerful than the defensive against a philosophy, since here, too, as always, the attack and not the defence makes the decision. The fight against a spiritual power with methods of violence remains defensive, however, until the sword becomes the support,the herald and disseminator, of a new spiritual doctrine. #Quote by Adolf Hitler

#18. The fact that it took the rise of democracies and otherwise open societies at Athens and elsewhere to create the climate in which public eloquence became a political indispensability. #Quote by Aristotle.

#19. Fusionism as a political philosophy falls short (as do its modern analogues, such as "conservatarianism") because, at the end of the day, liberty and order or freedom and virtue cannot be permanently reconciled. They are at once mutually dependent and at war, a bickering couple that cannot live without each other. At any given moment, one may have the better argument than the other, but tomorrow is another day. Life is full of contradictions and conflicts, and the story of Western civilization - the only true fundament of modern conservatism - is the story of these contradictions and conflicts being worked out over millennia. Fusionism is a failure if one looks to it as a source for what to think. But it is a shining success if one sees it as a guide for how to think. It tells us that we must always try to balance these conflicting principles - albeit with a thumb on the scales of liberty. That's fine, because in the classical liberal tradition, the benefit of the doubt should always go to liberty, while the forces of coercion should meet an extra burden of proof. #Quote by Jonah Goldberg

#20. When we take away from a man his traditional way of life, his customs, hi religion, we had better make certain to replace it with
SOMETHING OF VALUE #Quote by Robert Ruark

#21. The king's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate the armed men of any nationality or province who might attack them and their women and children, and to plunder the property of their enemies. Ester 8:11 #Quote by Bible. New International Version

#22. An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. #Quote by Plutarch

#23. For desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition. #Quote by Aristotle.

#24. Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. #Quote by John Rawls

#25. I'm guessing you thought I was way off on your political philosophy but right on the button about the other two. Just think about that for a while. #Quote by John Scalzi

#26. It has been claimed that Plato was an egalitarian; it has been claimed that he was a totalitarian. It has been claimed that he was the utopian, proposing a universal blueprint for the ideal state; it has been claimed that he was an anti-utopian, demonstrating that all political idealism is folly. It has been claimed that he was a populist, concerned with the best interests of all citizens; it has been claimed he was an elitist with disturbing eugenic tendencies. It has been claimed he was a romantic; it has been claimed that he was a prick. It has been claimed that he was a theorizer, with sweeping metaphysical doctrines; it has been claimed that he was the anti-theorizing skeptic, always intent on unsettling convictions. It has been claimed that he was full of humor and play; it has been claimed that he was as solemn as a sermon limining the torments of the damned. It has been claimed he loved his fellow man; it has been claimed he loves his fellow man. It has been claimed he was a philosopher who used his artistic gifts in the service of philosophy; it has been claimed he was an artist who used philosophy in the service of his art. #Quote by Rebecca Goldstein

#27. Like any overt school of mysticism, a movement seeking to achieve a vicious goal has to invoke the higher mysteries of an incomprehensible authority. An unread and unreadable book serves this purpose. It does not count on men's intelligence, but on their weaknesses, pretensions and fears. It is not a tool of enlightenment, but of intellectual intimidation. It is not aimed at the reader's understanding, but at his inferiority complex.
An intelligent man will reject such a book with contemptuous indignation, refusing to waste his time on untangling what he perceives to be gibberish - which is part of the book's technique: the man able to refute its arguments will not (unless he has the endurance of an elephant and the patience of a martyr). A young man of average intelligence - particularly a student of philosophy or of political science - under a barrage of authoritative pronouncements acclaiming the book as "scholarly," "significant," "profound," will take the blame for his failure to understand. More often than not, he will assume that the book's theory has been scientifically proved and that he alone is unable to grasp it; anxious, above all, to hide his inability, he will profess agreement, and the less his understanding, the louder his agreement - while the rest of the class are going through the same mental process. Most of them will accept the book's doctrine, reluctantly and uneasily, and lose their intellectual integrity, condemning themselves to a chronic fog of #Quote by Ayn Rand

#28. I look around and see that many - not all, but many - problems we've got could be solved if our culture simply fostered the habit of reading. Reading books of science, philosophy, history. Reading literature of quality, the sort that touches us because of a more profound reason, such as, for instance, because it's got something to say beyond all the futilities and trifles of life, even while depicting the ordinary in life, at the same time that it says it with style, in a unique, admirable manner. An original one.


We are not a county of readers, notwithstanding. We are the country of football turned into a cult, of guile being ranked high as a cardinal virtue, of Carnival made for exportation. A country where there are more letters in political party acronyms than in all many of our politicians have written in a lifetime. A country where ethics has become a joke theme. Where democracy is but a ridiculous puppet theatre.

Yes, I look around and see that many problems could be solved if we had the habit of reading. But I am not even sure whether there is someone reading these words. #Quote by Camilo Gomes Jr.

#29. Society is full of varieties, is this possible to make all of them sensitive? Then there will be no politics. #Quote by Vikram Roy

#30. People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life. #Quote by Aristotle.

#31. All humans are equal, but not everyone has the mental capacity to decide what's best for harmony and progress of a people. #Quote by Abhijit Naskar

#32. The world needs not new governments - the world needs not new parties - the world needs not new dictators masquerading as leaders or entrepreneurs - what the world needs is thought, punned in the flames of reason, courage and humaneness. #Quote by Abhijit Naskar

#33. Politicians of today are fragmented beings creating a fragmented world. #Quote by Abhijit Naskar

#34. It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. #Quote by Ayn Rand

#35. T happens in all human affairs that we never seek to escape one mischief without falling into another. Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage, and in accepting a less evil as a good. #Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli

#36. A politician will promise the moon but deliver an ant hill #Quote by Bangambiki Habyarimana

#37. The women of the world will dominate politics, some day, and you mustn't be too old-fashioned in your notions to join the procession of progress. #Quote by L. Frank Baum

#38. Hence anyone who is to listen intelligently to lectures about what is noble and just and, generally, about the subjects of political science must have been brought up in good habits. #Quote by Aristotle.

#39. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. #Quote by Thomas Jefferson

#40. Religions, race, nationality and now political parties are politicians best gadgets to divide, and control people. #Quote by Beta Metani'Marashi

#41. Authority does not have to be a person or institution which says: you have to do this, or you are not allowed to do that. While this kind of authority may be called external authority, authority can appear as internal authority, under the name of duty, conscience, or super-ego. As a matter of fact, the development of modern thinking from Protestantism to Kant's philosophy, can be characterized as the substitution of internalized authority for an external one. With the political victories of the rising middle class, external authority lost prestige and man's own conscience assumed the place which external authority once had held. This change appeared to many as the victory of freedom. To submit to orders from the outside (at least in spiritual matters) appeared to be unworthy of a free man; but the conquest of his natural inclinations, and the establishment of the domination of one part of the individual, his nature, by another, his reason, will or conscience, seemed to be the very essence of freedom. Analysis shows that conscience rules with a harshness as great as external authorities, and furthermore that frequently the contents of the orders issued by man's conscience are ultimately not governed by demands of the individual self but by social demands which have assumed the dignity of ethical norms. The rulership of conscience can be even harsher than that of external authorities, since the individual feels its orders to be his own; how can he rebel against himself?
In #Quote by Erich Fromm

#42. I believe that white frame house is worthy of more than a nod of nostalgia, because the values President Clinton learned there and in Hope formed the core of his political philosophy. #Quote by Mack McLarty

#43. It just doesn't make spiritual sense to suggest that the evil all lies "out there" with our adversaries and enemies, and none of it is "in here" with us - embedded in our own attitudes, behaviors, and policies. #Quote by Jim Wallis

#44. ...pseudo-scientific minds, like those of the scientist or the painter in love with the pictorial, both teaching as they were taught to become architects, practice a kind of building which is inevitably the result of conditioning of the mind instead of enlightenment. By this standard means also, the old conformities are appearing as new but only in another guise, more insidious because they are especially convenient to the standardizations of the modernist plan-factory and wholly ignorant of anything but public expediency. So in our big cities architecture like religion is helpless under the blows of science and the crushing weight of conformity--caused to gravitate to the masquerade in our streets in the name of "modernity." Fearfully concealing lack of initial courage or fundamental preparation or present merit: reactionary. Institutional public influences calling themselves conservative are really no more than the usual political stand-patters or social lid-sitters. As a feature of our cultural life architecture takes a backward direction, becomes less truly radical as our life itself grows more sterile, more conformist. All this in order to be safe?
How soon will "we the people" awake to the fact that the philosophy of natural or intrinsic building we are here calling organic is at one with our freedom--as declared, 1776? #Quote by Frank Lloyd Wright

#45. I am firmly convinced that we must never judge political movements by their aims, no matter how loudly proclaimed or how sincerely upheld, but only by the means they use to realize these aims. #Quote by Werner Heisenberg