S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Aristotle

[One of the most illustrious philosophers of antiquity; born at Stagira in Thrace, 384 B.C., and hence called the “Stagirite;” visited Athens at the age of seventeen, and became the pupil of Plato; was the instructor of Alexander the Great, and afterwards opened at Athens the school called the Lyceum, or the Peripatetic School; died at Chalcis, 322 B.C.]

Plato is dear, but truth still dearer.

When unable to adopt all the principles of his master’s philosophy, he was accustomed to make use of the formula which comes to us through the Latin, Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. This was the opposite of the motto of the disciples of Pythagoras, “The master has said it.” According to Ammonius (Life of Aristotle), the name of Socrates should be substituted for that of Plato, by whom it was said.—Phædon, ch. 91.

Being about to leave Athens, after a charge of impiety had been preferred against him by those who thought him a friend of Macedon, he alluded to his departure and to the death of Socrates, by saying, “I do not wish to see the Athenians sin twice against philosophy.”

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