# Metaphysics - Author: [Aristotle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle.md) - Quotes: 10 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics ## Quotes > The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/the-totality-is-not.md) > The wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him. p. 691 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/the-wise-man.md) > "It is impossible for the same attribute at once to belong and not to belong to the same thing and in the same relation"; and we must add any further qualifications that may be necessary to meet logical objections. This is the most certain of principles, since it possesses the required definition; for it is impossible for anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not, as some imagine that Heraclitus says. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/it-is-impossible.md) > If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/if-then-god.md) > But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. ... This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/but-as-more.md) Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md) > Music directly represents the passion of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/music-directly-represents.md) Topics: [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md), [music](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/music.md) > For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. — Metaphysics by Aristotle – Book 1, ClassicalWisdom.com p. 4 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/for-it-is-owing.md) Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md) > Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/those-who-assert.md) Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [beauty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty.md) > That which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its results. p. 1554 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/that-which-is-desirable.md) Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [wisdom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wisdom.md) > All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/all-men-by-nature.md) Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md)