“When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.”

— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII (translation)

About Aristotle

384 BC – 322 BC

Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath whose writings covered nearly every subject. His ethics, logic, and philosophy of mind continue to shape Western thought.

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Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

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

— Aristotle

“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

— Aristotle

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

— Aristotle

“Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'”

— C.S. Lewis

“Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher.”

— Oprah Winfrey

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

— C.S. Lewis

“Because it was he, because it was I.”

— Michel de Montaigne

“When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.”

About Aristotle

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