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And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.

Aristotle

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The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
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Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all practical activities whatever .... Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue.
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The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
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Being a father is the most rewarding thing a man whose career has plateaued can do.
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Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.
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By 'life,' we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.
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There are, then, three states of mind ... two vices--that of excess, and that of defect and one virtue--the mean and all these are in a certain sense opposed to one another for the extremes are not only opposed to the mean, but also to one another and the mean is opposed to the extremes.
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Philosophy can make people sick.
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The law is reason unaffected by desire.
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But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, - is this just?
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Nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office.
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Happiness is a quality of the soul...not a function of one's material circumstances.
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Men create the gods after their own images.
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It is no easy task to be good.
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We are what we do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.
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. . . the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's.
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We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference.
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Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice.
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All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.
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And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the mother of invention.
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