Aristotle on Nature

"Nature flies from the infinite, for the infinite is unending or imperfect, and Nature ever seeks an end."

"It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it."

"But for those that are equal to have an unequal share and those that are alike an unlike share is contrary to nature, and nothing contrary to nature is noble."

"The essential nature cannot be corporeal, yet it is also clear that this soul is present in a particular bodily part, and this one of the parts having control over the rest ."

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."

"The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole."

"Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all"

"Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or"

"Man is by nature a political animal."

"Nature does nothing uselessly."

"ll things as subsist from nature appear to contain in themselves a principle of motion and permanency; some according to place, others according to increase and diminuation; and others according to change in quality."

"Since... nature is a principle of motion and mutation... it is necessary that we should not be ignorant of what motion is... But motion appears to belong to things continuous; and the infinite first presents itself to the view in that which is continuous. ...requently ...those who define the continuous, employ the nature or the infinite, as if that which is divisible to infinity is continuous."

"t's gravity is the cause; and that which is heavy abides in the middle, and the earth is in the middle: in like manner also, the infinite will abide in itself, through some other cause... and will itself support itself. ...he places of the whole and the part are of the same species; as of the whole earth and a clod, the place is downward; and of the whole of fire, and a spark, the place is upward. So that if the place of the infinite is in itself, there will be the same place also of a part of the infinite."

"The natural way of doing this is to start from the things which are more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which are clearer and more knowable by nature; for the same things are not 'knowable relatively to us' and 'knowable' without qualification. So in the present inquiry we must follow this method and advance from what is more obscure by nature, but clearer to us, towards what is more clear and more knowable by nature. Now what is to us plain and obvious at first is rather confused masses, the elements and principles of which became known to us by later analysis..."

"According to one mode... nature is thus denominated, viz. the first subject matter to every thing which contains in itself the principle of motion and mutation. But after another mode it is denominated form, which subsists according to definition: for as art is called that which subsists according to art, and that which is artificial; so likewise nature is both called that which is according to nature, and that which is natural. ...that which is composed from these is not nature, but consists from nature; as, for instance, man. And this is nature in a greater degree than matter: for every thing is then said to be, when it is form in energy... entelecheia, rather than when it is incapacity."