Q0013

Aristotle

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Man is by nature a political animal.
Thinker Aristotle
School Peripatetic School
Source Politics I.2, 1253a
Theme Community
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Politics I.2, 1253a, within the tradition of Peripatetic School. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of community, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Aristotle's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Aristotle. (n.d.). Man is by nature a political animal. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0013

MLA: Aristotle. “Man is by nature a political animal..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0013.

Chicago: Aristotle. “Man is by nature a political animal..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0013.

Same thinker

More from Aristotle

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. The human good is activity of soul in accordance with virtue.
  3. Virtues arise in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature; we are fitted by nature to receive them, and are brought to completion by habit.
  4. Virtue is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us.
  5. A friend is another self.

All quotations by Aristotle

Same theme

More on community

  1. What is not good for the hive is not good for the bee.
  2. It is perhaps also strange to make the happy person a solitary.
  3. Two loves have made two cities.
  4. To find a form of association…by which each, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself, and remains as free as before.
  5. The many become one, and are increased by one.

Browse the community theme