Achieving
Excellence and Learning – Inspirational Quotes from Aristotle
Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle,
together with Socrates and Plato, laid much of the groundwork for western
philosophy. Aristotle was born
circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, Greece. At very young age, he enrolled in Plato’s
Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. Later on, Aristotle
founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest
of his life studying, teaching and writing.
Because Aristotle was known to walk around
the school grounds while teaching, his students, forced to follow him, were
nicknamed the “Peripatetics,” meaning “people who travel about.”
Lyceum members researched subjects ranging
from science and math to philosophy and politics, and nearly everything in
between. Art was also a popular area of interest. Members of the Lyceum wrote
up their findings in manuscripts. In so doing, they built the school’s massive
collection of written materials, which by ancient accounts was credited as one
of the first great libraries
His teaching and quotes are still relevant
today and gives a refreshing perspective on age-proof wisdom
Here are his 16 great inspiration quotes on
Excellence and Learning
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Excellence is an art won by training and
habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we
rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence,
then, is not an act, but a habit.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the
work.
It is the mark of an instructed mind to
rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject
admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is
possible.
If happiness is activity in accordance with
excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest
excellence.
For the things we have to learn before we
can do them, we learn by doing them.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of
habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts,
brave by doing brave acts.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture
of madness.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet
Education is an ornament in prosperity and
a refuge in adversity.
All who have meditated on the art of
governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the
education of youth.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the
dead
Education is the best provision for old age.
The least initial deviation from the truth
is multiplied later a thousand fold.
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is
truth.