It is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything; [for then] there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration.
aristotlequotes
384 – 322 BC
The founder of formal logic, Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC), was also an astounding scientist, who pioneered the study of zoology. Indeed, his scope of intellect ranged from ethics to aesthetics, logic and biology and everything in between. He enrolled in Plato’s Academy when he was 17 and devoted his entire life to study. After Plato’s death, Aristotle went on to be the private tutor to Alexander the Great for at a time, and then, with Alexander’s permission, built his own academy in Lyceum.
At the school, Aristotle was known to lecture while walking about the campus, which gave rise to his students being dubbed, “Peripatetics,” or those who travel from place to place. The school housed one of the most impressive libraries of the ancient world, and offered open and free lectures to the public.
Christian scholasticism and Medieval Islamic philosophy were rooted in Aristotle’s philosophical and scientific systems. He formalized universal principles of logic that used deduction and inference to form logical arguments, his most famous being syllogism.
Despite only 31 of his 200 manuscripts remaining today, Aristotle’s legacy remains immeasurably far-reaching as his arguments touched on almost every aspect of human knowledge, and philosopher’s continue to debate, interpret and teach his principles.
Those who are not angry at the things they should be angry at are thought to be fools, and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right persons.
It is the function of a poet to relate not things that have happened, but things that may happen.
There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
All terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder — either no chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also worse which we cannot, or cannot easily, help. Speaking generally, anything causes us to feel fear that when it happens to, or threatens, others causes us to feel pity.
It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of the poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of action.
But to be constantly asking ‘What is the use of it?’ is unbecoming to those of broad vision and unworthy of free men.
unbecoming / unworthy / vision
For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.