To his friends and scholars he used to say, that knowledge is to the soul what light is to the eyes; and that mellowness of the fruit makes up for the bitterness of the root. When irritated against the Athenians, he reproached them with neglecting their _laws_, and using their _corn_; though possessed of the former, as well as the latter.
He was one day asked, "What it is that is soonest effaced?" "Gratitude," replied he. "What is hope?" "A waking man's dream."
Diogenes presented Aristotle with a fig. Aristotle very well knew that were he to refuse it, Diogenes would level his wit against him. He took the fig, therefore, and with a smile said, "Diogenes has at once lost his fig and the use he intended to make of it."
He said there were three things very necessary to children: Genius, exercise, and instruction. When asked the difference between the learned and the ignorant, he replied: "The same as between the living and the dead." "Knowledge," he said, "is an ornament in prosperity, and in adversity a refuge. Those who give children a good education, are much more their fathers than those who have begotten them; the latter communicate mere life to them; the former put it in their power to spend it comfortably." "Beauty," said he, "is a recommendation infinitely stronger than any kind of learning."
He was one day asked, What pupils should do to turn their instructions to the greatest advantage? "They must," said he, "always keep in view those before them, and never look back to those behind them."
A certain person was one day boasting of being the citizen of an illustrious state. "Do not value yourself upon that," said Aristotle; "rather ask yourself whether you deserve to be so?"
Reflecting on human life, he sometimes said: "There are some who amass riches with as much avidity as if they were to live forever; others are as careless about their possessions as if they were to die to-morrow."
When asked, what is a friend? he replied, "One soul animating two bodies." "How," said one to him, "ought we to act to our friends?" "As we would have them to act toward us," replied Aristotle. He used frequently to exclaim, "Ah! my friends, there is not a friend in the world!"
He was one day asked, "How it comes that we prefer beautiful women to those who are ugly?" "You now ask a blind man's question," returned Aristotle.