The article analyzes the relationship between passions and sensations in Aristotle’s production. We start from Aristotle’s definition of passions as “affections” of the perceptive soul, thereby associating them to pleasures, pains and more generally desires, which are typical of beings equipped with perceptual faculties and sense organs. Starting from a specific treatment of the concepts of pathê and aisthêsis, the article points out possible analogies and irreducible differences, confirming the primacy of perception over passions, due to perception’s discrimination capability that can provide the first material for knowledge.