Aristotle

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Αριστοτέλης (Aristotelēs; Aristotle) (384 BC – 7 March 322 BC) Greek thinker and scientist

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• He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.

  (Simple: Someone who does not let fear stop him will really be free.)

  • This quote is sometimes written as: I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.

    (Simple: Someone who does not let his desires (his feelings of wanting things) stop him seems to me to have a stronger mind (less fear) than someone who does not let his enemies stop him).

• • Quoted in Florilegium by Joannes Stobaeus

• In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
  • Parts of Animals

  (Simple: In every natural thing like a tree, a flower etc. there is something to make a person wonder and feel good.)

• Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

  (Simple: When a person has bad luck, the person finds out which of their friends are not really friends.)

  • Eudemian Ethics

• How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.

  Simple: It is a large number of arguments that the people arguing could have made smaller into just a small number of sentences, if they had not been afraid to take the words they were using and explain the meaning of each word.

  (From Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our time by Laurence J. Peter. Bantam books, 1977. p. 24.