Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1222

Thus we see that Unity of Sentiment has for its object matters of action, and such of these as are of importance, and of mutual, or, in the case of single States, common, interest: when, for instance, all agree in the choice of magistrates, or forming alliance with the Lacedæmonians, or appointing Pittacus ruler (that is to say, supposing he himself was willing). But when each wishes himself to be in power (as the brothers in the Phœnissæ), they quarrel and form parties: for, plainly, Unity of Sentiment does not merely imply that each entertains the same idea be it what it may, but that they do so in respect of the same object, as when both the populace and the sensible men of a State desire that the best men should be in office, because then all attain their object.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1592

[10] The mind attains truth, either for the sake of truth itself ([Greek: aplos]), or for the sake of something further ([Greek: eneka tinos]). If the first then either syllogistically ([Greek: episteme]), non-syllogistically ([Greek: nous]), or by union of the two methods ([Greek: sophla]). If the second, either with a view to _act_ ([Greek: phronesis]), or with a view to _make_ ([Greek: techne]).

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 84

Knowledge of the right rule may be present, nay the rightfulness of its authority may be acknowledged, and yet time after time it may be disobeyed; the will may be good and yet overmastered by the force of desire, so that the act done is contrary to the agent’s will. Nevertheless the act may be the agent’s, and the will therefore divided against itself.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 485

But even Taste men seem to make little or no use of; for to the sense of Taste belongs the distinguishing of flavours; what men do, in fact, who are testing the quality of wines or seasoning “made dishes.”

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1663

[16][Greek: ton dae lechthenton]. Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the proper meaning of these words. The emendation which substitutes [Greek: akrataes] for [Greek: akolastos] removes all difficulty, as the clause would then naturally refer to [Greek: ton mae proairoumenon] but Zell adheres to the reading in the text of Bekker, because the authority of MSS and old editions is all on this side.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1310

Nor again is Pleasure therefore excluded from being good because it does not belong to the class of qualities:[4] the acts of Virtue are not qualities, neither is Happiness [yet surely both are goods].

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 211

Are we then to call no man happy while he lives, and, as Solon would have us, look to the end? And again, if we are to maintain this position, is a man then happy when he is dead? or is not this a complete absurdity, specially in us who say Happiness is a working of a certain kind?

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 368

Now since all involuntary action is either upon compulsion or by reason of ignorance, Voluntary Action would seem to be “that whose origination is in the agent, he being aware of the particular details in which the action consists.”

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1333

As I said then, they differ in kind, and you cannot at any time you choose find a Movement complete in its whole nature, but, if at all, in the whole time requisite.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1447

From this appears immediately the necessity of good training as preparatory to the study of Moral Philosophy for good training in habits will either work principles into our nature, or make us capable of accepting them as soon as they are put before us; which no mere intellectual training can do.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 91

Hence it follows that the highest and best pleasures are those which accompany the highest and best activity.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 291

Now by the mean of the thing, _i.e._ absolute mean, I denote that which is equidistant from either extreme (which of course is one and the same to all), and by the mean relatively to ourselves, that which is neither too much nor too little for the particular individual.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1286

On the other hand, the advantages of friends in our prosperity are the pleasurable intercourse and the consciousness that they are pleased at our good fortune.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 57

The rule prescribes the control and regulation within limits of the agent’s natural impulses to act and feel thus and thus. The situations fall into groups which constitute the “fields” of the several “moral virtues”, for each there is a rule, conformity to which secures rightness in the individual acts. Thus the moral ideal appears as a code of rules, accepted by the agent, but as yet _to him_ without rational justification and without system or unity.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 7

Nevertheless each work aims at a relative completeness, and it is important to observe the relation of each to the other.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1131

Now between Husband and Wife there is the same Friendship as in Aristocracy: for the relation is determined by relative excellence, and the better person has the greater good and each has what befits: so too also is the principle of Justice between them.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 780

Let it be understood then that there are two parts of the Soul possessed of Reason; one whereby we realise those existences whose causes cannot be otherwise than they are, and one whereby we realise those which can be otherwise than they are,[2] (for there must be, answering to things generically different, generically different parts of the soul naturally adapted to each, since these parts of the soul possess their knowledge in virtue of a certain resemblance and appropriateness in themselves to the objects of which they are percipients);[3] and let us name the former, “that which is apt to know,” the latter, “that which is apt to calculate” (because deliberating and calculating are the same, and no one ever deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise than they are: and so the Calculative will be one part of the Rational faculty of the soul).

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 248

The Excellence of Man then is divided in accordance with this difference: we make two classes, calling the one Intellectual, and the other Moral; pure science, intelligence, and practical wisdom—Intellectual: liberality, and perfected self-mastery—Moral: in speaking of a man’s Moral character, we do not say he is a scientific or intelligent but a meek man, or one of perfected self-mastery: and we praise the man of science in right of his mental state;[45] and of these such as are praiseworthy we call Excellences.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1568

[19] [Greek] Compare a similar use of [Greek]. De Interpretatione, II. 2. [Greek].

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1307

What is there then of such a nature? (meaning, of course, whereof we can partake; because that which we are in search of must be such).

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1345

No wonder then that they aim also at Pleasure, because to each it perfects Life, which is itself choice-worthy. (We will take leave to omit the question whether we choose Life for Pleasure’s sake of Pleasure for Life’s sake; because these two plainly are closely connected and admit not of separation; since Pleasure comes not into being without Working, and again, every Working Pleasure perfects.)

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 784

Now this Intellectual operation and this Truth is what bears upon Moral Action; of course truth and falsehood must be the good and the bad of that Intellectual Operation which is purely Speculative, and concerned neither with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work of every Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed Practical and Intellectual nature, the work is that Truth which, as I have described above, corresponds to the right movement of the Will.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 379

Further: Wish has for its object the End rather, but Moral Choice the means to the End; for instance, we wish to be healthy but we choose the means which will make us so; or happiness again we wish for, and commonly say so, but to say we choose is not an appropriate term, because, in short, the province of Moral Choice seems to be those things which are in our own power.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 271

Again, it grows up with us all from infancy, and so it is a hard matter to remove from ourselves this feeling, engrained as it is into our very life.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1343

How is it then that no one feels Pleasure continuously? is it not that he wearies, because all human faculties are incapable of unintermitting exertion; and so, of course, Pleasure does not arise either, because that follows upon the act of Working. But there are some things which please when new, but afterwards not in the like way, for exactly the same reason: that at first the mind is roused and works on these Objects with its powers at full tension; just as they who are gazing stedfastly at anything; but afterwards the act of Working is not of the kind it was at first, but careless, and so the Pleasure too is dulled.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 2

The _Ethics_ of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his _Politics_ is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the “philosophy of human affairs;” but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we have their author’s whole theory of human conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is not directed merely to knowledge or truth.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1241

And all the current proverbs support this view; for instance, “one soul,” “the goods of friends are common,” “equality is a tie of Friendship,” “the knee is nearer than the shin.” For all these things exist specially with reference to a man’s own Self: he is specially a friend to himself and so he is bound to love himself the most.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 781

We must discover, then, which is the best state of each of these, because that will be the Excellence of each; and this again is relative to the work each has to do.[4]

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 63

The discussion designedly excludes what we may call the metaphysical issues of the problem, which here present themselves, it moves on the level of thought of the practical man, the statesman, and the legislator. Coercion and ignorance of relevant circumstances render acts involuntary and exempt their doer from responsibility, otherwise the act is voluntary and the agent responsible, choice or preference of what is done, and inner consent to the deed, are to be presumed.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 181

If then the work of Man is a working of the soul in accordance with reason, or at least not independently of reason, and we say that the work of any given subject, and of that subject good of its kind, are the same in kind (as, for instance, of a harp-player and a good harp-player, and so on in every case, adding to the work eminence in the way of excellence; I mean, the work of a harp-player is to play the harp, and of a good harp-player to play it well); if, I say, this is so, and we assume the work of Man to be life of a certain kind, that is to say a working of the soul, and actions with reason, and of a good man to do these things well and nobly, and in fact everything is finished off well in the way of the excellence which peculiarly belongs to it: if all this is so, then the Good of Man comes to be “a working of the Soul in the way of Excellence,” or, if Excellence admits of degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect Excellence.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1033

(But some Pleasures result when natural states are being perfected: these therefore are good as a matter of result.)

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 405

Let this be accepted as a sketch of the nature and object of Moral Choice, that object being “Means to Ends.”

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 941

For all excessive folly, cowardice, absence of Self-Control, or irritability, are either Brutish or morbid.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 679

So then the Just we have been speaking of is a mean between loss and gain arising in involuntary transactions; that is, it is the having the same after the transaction as one had before it took place.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1542

[22]In Coronea in Bœotia, on the occasion of the citadel being betrayed to some Phocians. “The regulars” were Boeotian troops, the [Greek: politika] Coroneans.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 653

Well, the Unjust has been divided into the unlawful and the unequal, and the Just accordingly into the lawful and the equal: the aforementioned Injustice is in the way of the unlawful. And as the unequal and the more[7] are not the same, but differing as part to whole (because all more is unequal, but not all unequal more), so the Unjust and the Injustice we are now in search of are not the same with, but other than, those before mentioned, the one being the parts, the other the wholes; for this particular Injustice is a part of the Injustice co-extensive with Vice, and likewise this Justice of the Justice co-extensive with Virtue. So that what we have now to speak of is the particular Justice and Injustice, and likewise the particular Just and Unjust.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 193

Of these opinions, some rest on the authority of numbers or antiquity, others on that of few, and those men of note: and it is not likely that either of these classes should be wrong in all points, but be right at least in some one, or even in most.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 225

But since things which befall are many, and differ in all kinds of ways, and some touch more nearly, others less, to go into minute particular distinctions would evidently be a long and endless task: and so it may suffice to speak generally and in outline.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1623

[35] The definition of it in the Organon (Post Analyt. 1. xxiv.), “a happy conjecture of the middle term without time to consider of it.”

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 398

No physician, for instance, deliberates whether he will cure, nor orator whether he will persuade, nor statesman whether he will produce a good constitution, nor in fact any man in any other function about his particular End; but having set before them a certain End they look how and through what means it may be accomplished: if there is a choice of means, they examine further which are easiest and most creditable; or, if there is but one means of accomplishing the object, then how it may be through this, this again through what, till they come to the first cause; and this will be the last found; for a man engaged in a process of deliberation seems to seek and analyse, as a man, to solve a problem, analyses the figure given him.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 559

So the Great-minded man bears himself as he ought in respect of honour and dishonour. In fact, without need of words, the Great-minded plainly have honour for their object-matter: since honour is what the great consider themselves specially worthy of, and according to a certain rate.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 802

For this reason we think Pericles and men of that stamp to be Practically Wise, because they can see what is good for themselves and for men in general, and we also think those to be such who are skilled in domestic management or civil government. In fact, this is the reason why we call the habit of perfected self-mastery by the name which in Greek it bears, etymologically signifying “that which preserves the Practical Wisdom:” for what it does preserve is the Notion I have mentioned, _i.e._ of one’s own true interest.[18]

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1159

In Friendships based on goodness, the question, of course, is never raised, but herein the motive of the doer seems to be the proper standard, since virtue and moral character depend principally on motive.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 980

Moreover as there is a character who takes less pleasure than he ought in bodily enjoyments, and he also fails to abide by the conclusion of his Reason,[20] the man of Self-Control is the mean between him and the man of Imperfect Self-Control: that is to say, the latter fails to abide by them because of somewhat too much, the former because of somewhat too little; while the man of Self-Control abides by them, and never changes by reason of anything else than such conclusions.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 334

Therefore he who aims at the mean should make it his first care to keep away from that extreme which is more contrary than the other to the mean; just as Calypso in Homer advises Ulysses,

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 104

Finding in his predecessors no developed doctrine on this subject, Aristotle proposes himself to undertake the construction of it, and sketches in advance the programme of the _Politics_ in the concluding sentence of the _Ethics_ His ultimate object is to answer the questions, What is the best form of Polity, how should each be constituted, and what laws and customs should it adopt and employ? Not till this answer is given will “the philosophy of human affairs” be complete.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 196

Their life too is in itself pleasant: for the feeling of pleasure is a mental sensation, and that is to each pleasant of which he is said to be fond: a horse, for instance, to him who is fond of horses, and a sight to him who is fond of sights: and so in like manner just acts to him who is fond of justice, and more generally the things in accordance with virtue to him who is fond of virtue. Now in the case of the multitude of men the things which they individually esteem pleasant clash, because they are not such by nature, whereas to the lovers of nobleness those things are pleasant which are such by nature: but the actions in accordance with virtue are of this kind, so that they are pleasant both to the individuals and also in themselves.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 322

Indignation against successful vice,[19] again, is a state in the mean between Envy and Malevolence: they all three have respect to pleasure and pain produced by what happens to one’s neighbour: for the man who has this right feeling is annoyed at undeserved success of others, while the envious man goes beyond him and is annoyed at all success of others, and the malevolent falls so far short of feeling annoyance that he even rejoices [at misfortune of others].

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1086

To be a friend to many people, in the way of the perfect Friendship, is not possible; just as you cannot be in love with many at once: it is, so to speak, a state of excess which naturally has but one object; and besides, it is not an easy thing for one man to be very much pleased with many people at the same time, nor perhaps to find many really good. Again, a man needs experience, and to be in habits of close intimacy, which is very difficult.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1049

“The earth by drought consumed doth love the rain, And the great heaven, overcharged with rain, Doth love to fall in showers upon the earth.”