Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
1,690 passages indexed from Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) — Page 13 of 34
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Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1334
And so it is with the Movement of walking and all others: for, if motion be a Movement from one place to another place, then of it too there are different kinds, flying, walking, leaping, and such-like. And not only so, but there are different kinds even in walking: the where-from and where-to are not the same in the whole Course as in a portion of it; nor in one portion as in another; nor is crossing this line the same as crossing that: because a man is not merely crossing a line but a line in a given place, and this is in a different place from that.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 677
By this illustration, then, we obtain a rule to determine what one ought to take from him who has the greater, and what to add to him who has the less. The excess of the mean over the less must be added to the less, and the excess of the greater over the mean be taken from the greater.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 349
But for such actions men sometimes are even praised, as when they endure any disgrace or pain to secure great and honourable equivalents; if _vice versâ_, then they are blamed, because it shows a base mind to endure things very disgraceful for no honourable object, or for a trifling one.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 257
So then, whether we are accustomed this way or that straight from childhood, makes not a small but an important difference, or rather I would say it makes all the difference.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 899
Well then, is it Practical Wisdom which in this case offers opposition: for that is the strongest principle? The supposition is absurd, for we shall have the same man uniting Practical Wisdom and Imperfect Self-Control, and surely no single person would maintain that it is consistent with the character of Practical Wisdom to do voluntarily what is very wrong; and besides we have shown before that the very mark of a man of this character is aptitude to act, as distinguished from mere knowledge of what is right; because he is a man conversant with particular details, and possessed of all the other virtues.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1195
Are we then to break with him instantly? not in all cases; only where our friends are incurably depraved; when there is a chance of amendment we are bound to aid in repairing the moral character of our friends even more than their substance, in proportion as it is better and more closely related to Friendship. Still he who should break off the connection is not to be judged to act wrongly, for he never was a friend to such a character as the other now is, and therefore, since the man is changed and he cannot reduce him to his original state, he backs out of the connection.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 621
Well then, are we to characterise him who jests well by his saying what is becoming a gentleman, or by his avoiding to pain the object of his wit, or even by his giving him pleasure? or will not such a definition be vague, since different things are hateful and pleasant to different men?
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 984
And it is not possible for the same man to be at once a man of Practical Wisdom and of Imperfect Self-Control: because the character of Practical Wisdom includes, as we showed before, goodness of moral character. And again, it is not knowledge merely, but aptitude for action, which constitutes Practical Wisdom: and of this aptitude the man of Imperfect Self-Control is destitute. But there is no reason why the Clever man should not be of Imperfect Self-Control: and the reason why some men are occasionally thought to be men of Practical Wisdom, and yet of Imperfect Self-Control, is this, that Cleverness differs from Practical Wisdom in the way I stated in a former book, and is very near it so far as the intellectual element is concerned but differs in respect of the moral choice.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1651
The solution then of the phænomenon of [Greek:——] is this that [Greek:——], by its direct action on the animal nature, swamps the suggestions of Right Reason.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 171
Now since the ends are plainly many, and of these we choose some with a view to others (wealth, for instance, musical instruments, and, in general, all instruments), it is clear that all are not final: but the Chief Good is manifestly something final; and so, if there is some one only which is final, this must be the object of our search: but if several, then the most final of them will be it.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1644
[57] Compare the passage at the commencement of Book X. [Greek: nun de phainontai] [Greek: katokochimon ek tæs aretæs].
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1396
Happiness then is co-extensive with this Contemplative Speculation, and in proportion as people have the act of Contemplation so far have they also the being happy, not incidentally, but in the way of Contemplative Speculation because it is in itself precious.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 569
Moreover, he is not a man to incur little risks, nor does he court danger, because there are but few things he has a value for; but he will incur great dangers, and when he does venture he is prodigal of his life as knowing that there are terms on which it is not worth his while to live.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 639
But the Unjust man does not always choose actually the greater part, but even sometimes the less; as in the case of things which are simply evil: still, since the less evil is thought to be in a manner a good and the grasping is after good, therefore even in this case he is thought to be a grasping man, _i.e._ one who strives for more good than fairly falls to his share: of course he is also an unequal man, this being an inclusive and common term.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 651
Thus it is clear that there is a kind of Injustice different from and besides that which includes all Vice, having the same name because the definition is in the same genus; for both have their force in dealings with others, but the one acts upon honour, or wealth, or safety, or by whatever one name we can include all these things, and is actuated by pleasure attendant on gain, while the other acts upon all things which constitute the sphere of the good man’s action.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1685
[11] Pleasure is so instantaneous a sensation, that it cannot be conceived divisible or incomplete; the longest continued Pleasure is only a succession of single sparks, so rapid as to give the appearance of a stream, of light.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1101
This has given room for a doubt, whether friends do really wish to their friends the very highest goods, as that they may be gods: because, in case the wish were accomplished, they would no longer have them for friends, nor in fact would they have the good things they had, because friends are good things. If then it has been rightly said that a friend wishes to his friend good things for that friend’s sake, it must be understood that he is to remain such as he now is: that is to say, he will wish the greatest good to him of which as man he is capable: yet perhaps not all, because each man desires good for himself most of all.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 116
Later editions of separate works _De Anima_ Torstrik, 1862, Trendelenburg, 2nd edition, 1877, with English translation, L Wallace, 1882, Biehl, 1884, 1896, with English, R D Hicks, 1907 _Ethica_ J S Brewer (Nicomachean), 1836, W E Jelf, 1856, J F T Rogers, 1865, A Grant, 1857 8, 1866, 1874, 1885, E Moore, 1871, 1878, 4th edition, 1890, Ramsauer (Nicomachean), 1878, Susemihl, 1878, 1880, revised by O Apelt, 1903, A Grant, 1885, I Bywater (Nicomachean), 1890, J Burnet, 1900
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 242
And there seems to be another Irrational Nature of the Soul, which yet in a way partakes of Reason. For in the man who controls his appetites, and in him who resolves to do so and fails, we praise the Reason or Rational part of the Soul, because it exhorts aright and to the best course: but clearly there is in them, beside the Reason, some other natural principle which fights with and strains against the Reason.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1430
Since then those who have preceded us have left uninvestigated the subject of Legislation, it will be better perhaps for us to investigate it ourselves, and, in fact, the whole subject of Polity, that thus what we may call Human Philosophy may be completed as far as in us lies.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1306
However, this argument at least seems to prove only that it belongs to the class of goods, and not that it does so more than anything else: for every good is more choicewortby in combination with some other than when taken quite alone. In fact, it is by just such an argument that Plato proves that Pleasure is not the Chief Good:[3] “For,” says he, “the life of Pleasure is more choice-worthy in combination with Practical Wisdom than apart from it; but, if the compound better then simple Pleasure cannot be the Chief Good; because the very Chief Good cannot by any addition become choice-worthy than it is already:” and it is obvious that nothing else can be the Chief Good, which by combination with any of the things in themselves good comes to be more choice-worthy.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 732
Then as for involuntary acts of harm, they are either such as are excusable or such as are not: under the former head come all errors done not merely in ignorance but from ignorance; under the latter all that are done not from ignorance but in ignorance caused by some passion which is neither natural nor fairly attributable to human infirmity.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1520
[6] Aristotle has, I venture to think, rather quibbled here, by using [Greek: epithumia] and its verb, equivocally as there is no following his argument without condescending to the same device, I have used our word lust in its ancient signification Ps. xxiv. 12, “What man is he that lusteth to live?”
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1468
[27] It is remarkable how Aristotle here again shelves what he considers an unpractical question. If Happiness were really a direct gift from Heaven, independently of human conduct, all motive to self-discipline and moral improvement would vanish He shows therefore that it is no depreciation of the value of Happiness to suppose it to come partly at least from ourselves, and he then goes on with other reasons why we should think with him.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 926
And those who are excessive in their liking for such things contrary to the principle of Right Reason which is in their own breasts we do not designate men of Imperfect Self-Control simply, but with the addition of the thing wherein, as in respect of money, or gain, or honour, or anger, and not simply; because we consider them as different characters and only having that title in right of a kind of resemblance (as when we add to a man’s name “conqueror in the Olympic games” the account of him as Man differs but little from the account of him as the Man who conquered in the Olympic games, but still it is different).
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 144
Now to sift all the opinions would be perhaps rather a fruitless task; so it shall suffice to sift those which are most generally current, or are thought to have some reason in them.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 315
Here too there is excess, defect, and a mean state; but since they may be said to have really no proper names, as we call the virtuous character Meek, we will call the mean state Meekness, and of the extremes, let the man who is excessive be denominated Passionate, and the faulty state Passionateness, and him who is deficient Angerless, and the defect Angerlessness.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1024
If so, we ask, why are the contrary Pains bad? they cannot be (on their assumption) because the contrary of bad is good.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 587
And the defect, call it Angerlessness or what you will, is blamed: I mean, they who are not angry at things at which they ought to be angry are thought to be foolish, and they who are angry not in right manner, nor in right time, nor with those with whom they ought; for a man who labours under this defect is thought to have no perception, nor to be pained, and to have no tendency to avenge himself, inasmuch as he feels no anger: now to bear with scurrility in one’s own person, and patiently see one’s own friends suffer it, is a slavish thing.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1350
Much the same kind of thing takes place in other cases, when a person is engaged in two different Workings at the same time: that is, the pleasanter of the two keeps pushing out the other, and, if the disparity in pleasantness be great, then more and more till a man even ceases altogether to work at the other.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 542
Well, the expenses of the Magnificent man are great and fitting: such also are his works (because this secures the expenditure being not great merely, but befitting the work). So then the work is to be proportionate to the expense, and this again to the work, or even above it: and the Magnificent man will incur such expenses from the motive of honour, this being common to all the virtues, and besides he will do it with pleasure and lavishly; excessive accuracy in calculation being Mean. He will consider also how a thing may be done most beautifully and fittingly, rather, than for how much it may be done, and how at the least expense.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1212
Neither, in fact, can they who are of this character sympathise with their Selves in their joys and sorrows, because their soul is, as it were, rent by faction, and the one principle, by reason of the depravity in them, is grieved at abstaining from certain things, while the other and better principle is pleased thereat; and the one drags them this way and the other that way, as though actually tearing them asunder.[2] And though it is impossible actually to have at the same time the sensations of pain and pleasure; yet after a little time the man is sorry for having been pleased, and he could wish that those objects had not given him pleasure; for the wicked are full of remorse.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1062
Friendship of this kind is thought to exist principally among the old (because men at that time of life pursue not what is pleasurable but what is profitable); and in such, of men in their prime and of the young, as are given to the pursuit of profit. They that are such have no intimate intercourse with one another; for sometimes they are not even pleasurable to one another; nor, in fact, do they desire such intercourse unless their friends are profitable to them, because they are pleasurable only in so far as they have hopes of advantage. With these Friendships is commonly ranked that of hospitality.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1217
So that, in a metaphorical way of speaking, one might say that it is dormant Friendship, and when it has endured for a space and ripened into intimacy comes to be real Friendship; but not that whose object is advantage or pleasure, because such motives cannot produce even Kindly Feeling.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1172
Quarrels arise also when the parties realise different results and not those which they desire; for the not attaining one’s special object is all one, in this case, with getting nothing at all: as in the well-known case where a man made promises to a musician, rising in proportion to the excellence of his music; but when, the next morning, the musician claimed the performance of his promises, he said that he had given him pleasure for pleasure: of course, if each party had intended this, it would have been all right: but if the one desires amusement and the other gain, and the one gets his object but the other not, the dealing cannot be fair: because a man fixes his mind upon what he happens to want, and will give so and so for that specific thing.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 106
The most characteristic features of this Moral Philosophy are due to the fact of its essentially teleological view of human life and action: (1) Every human activity, but especially every human practical activity, is directed towards a simple End discoverable by reflection, and this End is conceived of as the object of universal human desire, as something to be enjoyed, not as something which ought to be done or enacted.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1056
And when men do thus wish good to another (he not reciprocating the feeling), people call them Kindly; because Friendship they describe as being “Kindliness between persons who reciprocate it.” But must they not add that the feeling must be mutually known? for many men are kindly disposed towards those whom they have never seen but whom they conceive to be amiable or useful: and this notion amounts to the same thing as a real feeling between them.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 687
And this is so also in the other arts: for they would have been destroyed entirely if there were not a correspondence in point of quantity and quality between the producer and the consumer. For, we must remember, no dealing arises between two of the same kind, two physicians, for instance; but say between a physician and agriculturist, or, to state it generally, between those who are different and not equal, but these of course must have been equalised before the exchange can take place.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1534
[14] A stone once set in motion cannot be recalled, because it is then placed under the operation of natural laws which cannot be controlled or altered, so too in Moral declension, there is a point at which gravitation operates irretrievably, “there is a certain bound to imprudence and misbehaviour which being transgressed, there remains no place for repentance in the natural course of things.” Bishop Butler’s Analogy, First Part, chap 11.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1462
[21] This principle is more fully stated, with illustrations, in the Topics, I. chap. ix.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1515
[4] [Greek: eneka] primarily denotes the relation of cause and effect all circumstances which in any way contribute to a cert result are [Greek: eneka] that result.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1114
Different also are the principles of Injustice as regards these different grades, and the acts become intensified by being done to friends; for instance, it is worse to rob your companion than one who is merely a fellow-citizen; to refuse help to a brother than to a stranger; and to strike your father than any one else. So then the Justice naturally increases with the degree of Friendship, as being between the same parties and of equal extent.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 501
The name of this vice (which signifies etymologically unchastened-ness) we apply also to the faults of children, there being a certain resemblance between the cases: to which the name is primarily applied, and to which secondarily or derivatively, is not relevant to the present subject, but it is evident that the later in point of time must get the name from the earlier. And the metaphor seems to be a very good one; for whatever grasps after base things, and is liable to great increase, ought to be chastened; and to this description desire and the child answer most truly, in that children also live under the direction of desire and the grasping after what is pleasant is most prominently seen in these.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1365
And again, such amusements as are pleasant; because people do not choose them with any further purpose: in fact they receive more harm than profit from them, neglecting their persons and their property. Still the common run of those who are judged happy take refuge in such pastimes, which is the reason why they who have varied talent in such are highly esteemed among despots; because they make themselves pleasant in those things which these aim at, and these accordingly want such men.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 252
But the Virtues we get by first performing single acts of working, which, again, is the case of other things, as the arts for instance; for what we have to make when we have learned how, these we learn how to make by making: men come to be builders, for instance, by building; harp-players, by playing on the harp: exactly so, by doing just actions we come to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1640
[50] This is another case of an observation being thrown in _obiter_, not relevant to, but suggested by, the matter in hand.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 755
Again the abstract principles of Justice have their province among those who partake of what is abstractedly good, and can have too much or too little of these.[28] Now there are beings who cannot have too much of them, as perhaps the gods; there are others, again, to whom no particle of them is of use, those who are incurably wicked to whom all things are hurtful; others to whom they are useful to a certain degree: for this reason then the province of Justice is among _Men_.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1021
It is plain too that, unless Pleasure and its active working be good, it will not be true that the happy man’s life embodies Pleasure: for why will he want it on the supposition that it is not good and that he can live even with Pain? because, assuming that Pleasure is not good, then Pain is neither evil nor good, and so why should he avoid it?
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1012
We have already said in what sense all Pleasures are good _per se_ and in what sense not all are good: it is the latter class that brutes and children pursue, such as are accompanied by desire and pain, that is the bodily Pleasures (which answer to this description) and the excesses of them: in short, those in respect of which the man utterly destitute of Self-Control is thus utterly destitute. And it is the absence of the pain arising from these Pleasures that the man of Practical Wisdom aims at. It follows that these Pleasures are what the man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids: for obviously he has Pleasures peculiarly his own.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1273
But of the good are we to make as many as ever we can, or is there any measure of the number of friends, as there is of the number to constitute a Political Community? I mean, you cannot make one out of ten men, and if you increase the number to one hundred thousand it is not any longer a Community. However, the number is not perhaps some one definite number but any between certain extreme limits.