Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1417

For just as in Communities laws and customs prevail, so too in families the express commands of the Head, and customs also: and even more in the latter, because of blood-relationship and the benefits conferred: for there you have, to begin with, people who have affection and are naturally obedient to the authority which controls them.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 939

These are instances of Brutish states, caused in some by disease or madness; take, for instance, the man who sacrificed and ate his mother, or him who devoured the liver of his fellow-servant. Instances again of those caused by disease or by custom, would be, plucking out of hair, or eating one’s nails, or eating coals and earth.[13] Now wherever nature is really the cause no one would think of calling men of Imperfect Self-Control, ...

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 444

So honour is the motive from which the Brave man withstands things fearful and performs the acts which accord with Courage.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1254

A question is raised also respecting the Happy man, whether he will want Friends, or no?

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 921

Let this account then be accepted of the question respecting the failure in Self-Control, whether it is with Knowledge, and the manner in which such failure is possible or not, though a man possesses Knowledge.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1335

Of Movement I have discoursed exactly in another treatise. I will now therefore only say that it seems not to be complete at any given moment; and that most movements are incomplete and specifically different, since the whence and whither constitute different species.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 227

It is plain then that the good or ill fortunes of their friends do affect the dead somewhat: but in such kind and degree as neither to make the happy unhappy nor produce any other such effect.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 693

Now that what connects men in such transactions is Demand, as being some one thing, is shown by the fact that, when either one does not want the other or neither want one another, they do not exchange at all: whereas they do[19] when one wants what the other man has, wine for instance, giving in return corn for exportation.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 237

And if this is so, it is plain that some knowledge of the nature of the Soul is necessary for the statesman, just as for the oculist a knowledge of the whole body, and the more so in proportion as πολιτικὴ is more precious and higher than the healing art: and in fact physicians of the higher class do busy themselves much with the knowledge of the body.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 894

Now a man may raise a question as to the nature of the right conception in violation of which a man fails of Self-Control.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 707

It follows then that those who are not in this position have not among themselves the Social Just, but still Just of some kind and resembling that other. For Just implies mutually acknowledged law, and law the possibility of injustice, for adjudication is the act of distinguishing between the Just and the Unjust.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 39

It is interesting to compare this account of Happiness with Mill’s in _Utilitarianism_. Mill’s is much the less consistent: at times he distinguishes and at times he identifies, happiness, pleasure, contentment, and satisfaction. He wavers between belief in its general attainability and an absence of hopefulness.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 49

The “moral virtues and vices” make up what we call character, and the important questions arise: (1) What is character? and (2) How is it formed? (for character in this sense is not a natural endowment; it is formed or produced). Aristotle deals with these questions in the reverse order. His answers are peculiar and distinctive—not that they are absolutely novel (for they are anticipated in Plato), but that by him they are for the first time distinctly and clearly formulated.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 741

Now if acting unjustly is simply “hurting another voluntarily” (by which I mean, knowing whom you are hurting, and wherewith, and how you are hurting him), and the man who fails of self-control voluntarily hurts himself, then this will be a case of being voluntarily dealt unjustly with, and it will be possible for a man to deal unjustly with himself. (This by the way is one of the questions raised, whether it is possible for a man to deal unjustly with himself.) Or again, a man may, by reason of failing of self-control, receive hurt from another man acting voluntarily, and so here will be another case of being unjustly dealt with voluntarily.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 434

Of course we fear evils of all kinds: disgrace, for instance, poverty, disease, desolateness, death; but not all these seem to be the object-matter of the Brave man, because there are things which to fear is right and noble, and not to fear is base; disgrace, for example, since he who fears this is a good man and has a sense of honour, and he who does not fear it is shameless (though there are those who call him Brave by analogy, because he somewhat resembles the Brave man who agrees with him in being free from fear); but poverty, perhaps, or disease, and in fact whatever does not proceed from viciousness, nor is attributable to his own fault, a man ought not to fear: still, being fearless in respect of these would not constitute a man Brave in the proper sense of the term.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1190

A question is also raised as to the propriety of dissolving or not dissolving those Friendships the parties to which do not remain what they were when the connection was formed.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 222

Why then should we not call happy the man who works in the way of perfect virtue, and is furnished with external goods sufficient for acting his part in the drama of life:[35] and this during no ordinary period but such as constitutes a complete life as we have been describing it.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1460

[18] Compare Bishop Butler’s account of “Human Nature as a System” in the Preface to his Sermons.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1326

Again, no one would choose to live with a child’s intellect all his life through, though receiving the highest possible Pleasure from such objects as children receive it from; or to take Pleasure in doing any of the most disgraceful things, though sure never to be pained.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 522

Again, should it happen to him to spend money beyond what is needful, or otherwise than is well, he will be vexed, but only moderately and as he ought; for feeling pleasure and pain at right objects, and in right manner, is a property of Virtue.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 773

Now, taking these into consideration, there is thought to be a possibility of injustice towards one’s self, because herein it is possible for men to suffer somewhat in contradiction of impulses really their own; and so it is thought that there is Just of a certain kind between these parts mutually, as between ruler and ruled.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 123

Rhetorica, A summary by T Hobbes, 1655 (?), new edition, 1759, by the translators of the Art of Thinking, 1686, 1816, by D M Crimmin, 1812, J Gillies, 1823, Anon 1847, J E C Welldon, 1886, R C Jebb, with Introduction and Supplementary Notes by J E Sandys, 1909 (see under Poetica and Ethica). Secreta Secretorum (supposititious work), Anon 1702, from the Hebrew version by M Gaster, 1907, 1908. Version by Lydgate and Burgh, edited by R Steele (E E T S), 1894, 1898.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 390

Nor again about things which are in motion but which always happen in the same way either necessarily, or naturally, or from some other cause, as the solstices or the sunrise.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 905

Again, if any and every thing is the object-matter of Imperfect and Perfect Self-Control, who is the man of Imperfect Self-Control simply? because no one unites all cases of it, and we commonly say that some men are so simply, not adding any particular thing in which they are so.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 34

In what then does happiness consist? Aristotle summarily sets aside the more or less popular identifications of it with abundance of physical pleasures, with political power and honour, with the mere possession of such superior gifts or attainments as normally entitle men to these, with wealth. None of these can constitute the end or good of man as such.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 195

And there is perhaps no unimportant difference between conceiving of the Chief Good as in possession or as in use, in other words, as a mere state or as a working. For the state or habit[23] may possibly exist in a subject without effecting any good, as, for instance, in him who is asleep, or in any other way inactive; but the working cannot so, for it will of necessity act, and act well. And as at the Olympic games it is not the finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists, for out of these the prize-men are selected; so too in life, of the honourable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the prizes.[24]

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 329

And for this there are two reasons to be given; one from the nature of the thing itself, because from the one extreme being nearer and more like the mean, we do not put this against it, but the other; as, for instance, since rashness is thought to be nearer to courage than cowardice is, and to resemble it more, we put cowardice against courage rather than rashness, because those things which are further from the mean are thought to be more contrary to it.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 888

II. That the man of Self-Control is identical with the man who is apt to abide by his resolution, and the man of Imperfect Self-Control with him who is apt to depart from his resolution.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1313

If, on the other hand, they judge in respect of the Pleasures themselves then it may be they miss the true cause, namely that some are unmixed and others mixed: for just as health being in itself limited, admits of degrees, why should not Pleasure do so and yet be limited? in the former case we account for it by the fact that there is not the same adjustment of parts in all men, nor one and the same always in the same individual: but health, though relaxed, remains up to a certain point, and differs in degrees; and of course the same may be the case with Pleasure.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 762

The answer to the second of the two questions indicated above, “whether it is possible for a man to deal unjustly by himself,” is obvious from what has been already stated.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 324

Now as there are three states in each case, two faulty either in the way of excess or defect, and one right, which is the mean state, of course all are in a way opposed to one another; the extremes, for instance, not only to the mean but also to one another, and the mean to the extremes: for just as the half is greater if compared with the less portion, and less if compared with the greater, so the mean states, compared with the defects, exceed, whether in feelings or actions, and _vice versa_.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1435

The third sense is “The detail of Civil Government,” which Aristotle expressly states (vi. 8) was the most common acceptation of the term.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 918

For instance, let the universal be, “All that is sweet should be tasted,” the particular, “This is sweet;” it follows necessarily that he who is able and is not hindered should not only draw, but put in practice, the conclusion “This is to be tasted.” When then there is in the mind one universal proposition forbidding to taste, and the other “All that is sweet is pleasant” with its minor “This is sweet” (which is the one that really works), and desire happens to be in the man, the first universal bids him avoid this but the desire leads him on to taste; for it has the power of moving the various organs: and so it results that he fails in Self-Control, in a certain sense under the influence of Reason and Opinion not contrary in itself to Reason but only accidentally so; because it is the desire that is contrary to Right Reason, but not the Opinion:[7] and so for this reason brutes are not accounted of Imperfect Self-Control, because they have no power of conceiving universals but only of receiving and retaining particular impressions.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1304

Again he urged that that is most choice-worthy which we choose, not by reason of, or with a view to, anything further; and that Pleasure is confessedly of this kind because no one ever goes on to ask to what purpose he is pleased, feeling that Pleasure is in itself choice-worthy.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1149

Neither can there well be quarrels between men who are friends for pleasure’s sake: because supposing them to delight in living together then both attain their desire; or if not a man would be put in a ridiculous light who should find fault with another for not pleasing him, since it is in his power to forbear intercourse with him. But the Friendship because of advantage is very liable to fault-finding; because, as the parties use one another with a view to advantage, the requirements are continually enlarging, and they think they have less than of right belongs to them, and find fault because though justly entitled they do not get as much as they want: while they who do the kindnesses, can never come up to the requirements of those to whom they are being done.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 895

That he can so fail when _knowing_ in the strict sense what is right some say is impossible: for it is a strange thing, as Socrates thought, that while Knowledge is present in his mind something else should master him and drag him about like a slave. Socrates in fact contended generally against the theory, maintaining there is no such state as that of Imperfect Self-Control, for that no one acts contrary to what is best conceiving it to be best but by reason of ignorance what is best.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1000

In support of the second (that not all Pleasures are good), That there are some base and matter of reproach, and some even hurtful: because some things that are pleasant produce disease.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1206

Then, again, he has good store of matter for his Intellect to contemplate, and he most especially sympathises with his Self in its griefs and joys, because the objects which give him pain and pleasure are at all times the same, not one thing to-day and a different one to-morrow: because he is not given to repentance,[1] if one may so speak.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 239

In fact, the few statements made on the subject in my popular treatises are quite enough, and accordingly we will adopt them here: as, that the Soul consists of two parts, the Irrational and the Rational (as to whether these are actually divided, as are the parts of the body, and everything that is capable of division; or are only metaphysically speaking two, being by nature inseparable, as are convex and concave circumferences, matters not in respect of our present purpose).

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 636

It follows moreover in general,[2] that if of two contrary terms the one is used in many senses so also will the other be; as, for instance, if “the Just,” then also “the Unjust.” Now Justice and Injustice do seem to be used respectively in many senses, but, because the line of demarcation between these is very fine and minute,[3] it commonly escapes notice that they are thus used, and it is not plain and manifest as where the various significations of terms are widely different for in these last the visible difference is great, for instance, the word κλεὶς is used equivocally to denote the bone which is under the neck of animals and the instrument with which people close doors.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1054

A question here arises; whether it is good absolutely or that which is good to the individuals, for which men feel Friendship (these two being sometimes distinct): and similarly in respect of the pleasurable. It seems then that each individual feels it towards that which is good to himself, and that abstractedly it is the real good which is the object of Friendship, and to each individual that which is good to each. It comes then to this; that each individual feels Friendship not for what _is_ but for that which _conveys to his mind the impression of being_ good to himself. But this will make no real difference, because that which is truly the object of Friendship will also convey this impression to the mind.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1235

Further, the entertaining the feeling of Friendship is like acting on another; but being the object of the feeling is like being acted upon.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 51

Hence the several acts which determine goodness or badness of character must be done in a certain way, and thus the formation of good character requires discipline and direction from without. Not that the agent himself contributes nothing to the formation of his character, but that at first he needs guidance. The point is not so much that the process cannot be safely left to Nature, but that it cannot be entrusted to merely intellectual instruction.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 581

For we blame the lover of Honour as aiming at Honour more than he ought, and from wrong sources; and him who is destitute of a love of Honour as not choosing to be honoured even for what is noble. Sometimes again we praise the lover of Honour as manly and having a love for what is noble, and him who has no love for it as being moderate and modest (as we noticed also in the former discussion of these virtues).

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 791

So then, whatever comes within the range of Knowledge is by necessity, and therefore eternal, (because all things are so which exist necessarily,) and all eternal things are without beginning, and indestructible.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 834

But even this again you may get by false reasoning, and hit upon the right effect though not through right means,[37] your middle term being fallacious: and so neither will this be yet Good Counsel in consequence of which you get what you ought but not through proper means.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1046

Lastly, not only is it a thing necessary but honourable likewise: since we praise those who are fond of friends, and the having numerous friends is thought a matter of credit to a man; some go so far as to hold, that “good man” and “friend” are terms synonymous.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 98

But we cannot resist certain criticisms upon its presentation by Aristotle: (1) the relation of it to the lower ideal of practice is left somewhat obscure; (2) it is described in such a way as renders its realisation possible only to a gifted few, and under exceptional circumstances; (3) it seems in various ways, as regards its content, to be unnecessarily and unjustifiably limited.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 812

And it is quite plain that Science and πολιτικὴ cannot be identical: because if men give the name of Science to that faculty which is employed upon what is expedient for themselves, there will be many instead of one, because there is not one and the same faculty employed on the good of all animals collectively, unless in the same sense as you may say there is one art of healing with respect to all living beings.

Nicomachean Ethics, passage 411

Now since the End is the object of Wish, and the means to the End of Deliberation and Moral Choice, the actions regarding these matters must be in the way of Moral Choice, _i.e._ voluntary: but the acts of working out the virtues are such actions, and therefore Virtue is in our power.

Nicomachean Ethics

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