The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle |
Common terms and phrases
accidentally act of injustice act unjustly action adultery anger appetite Aristotle Brasidas called Calypso choose common idea contrary courageous coward deed deficiency deliberate desire Diomede disgrace equal equitable Euripides evil exceeds excellence or virtue excess exercise fall short fear feeling foolhardy gives unjust grammatical person gymnastic habit or trained happiness Hesiod high-minded hold honour hurt ignorance illiberal implies incontinent inquiry intellectual virtues involuntary judge justice kind lence liberal magnificent man's matter merely moral virtues nature noble object of wish observes the mean occasions opposed ourselves particular plain Plato pleasant pleasure and pain praise Priam prodigality profligacy profligate prudence racter reason right persons sake Sardanapalus seems sense sometimes sort soul speak spend Speusippus starting-point or principle suffer injustice temperate things tion trained faculty truth undemonstrated fact vice virtue or excellence voluntarily voluntary wealth word wrong
Popular passages
Page 7 - Idea there is one science, there would have been one science of all the goods; but as it is there are many sciences even of the things that fall under one category, eg of opportunity, for opportunity in war is studied by strategics and in disease by medicine, and the moderate in food is studied by medicine and in exercise by the science of gymnastics. And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by 'a thing itself...
Page 28 - ... makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see well.
Page 39 - ... to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.
Page 17 - Now, on this division of the faculties is based the division of excellence; for we speak of intellectual excellences and of moral excellences; wisdom and understanding and prudence we call intellectual, liberality and temperance we call moral virtues or excellences. When we are speaking of a man's moral character we do not say that he is wise or intelligent, but that he is gentle or temperate.
Page 21 - Just so, then, is it with temperance also, and courage, and the other virtues. The man who shuns and fears everything and never makes a stand, becomes a coward; while the man who fears nothing at all, but will face anything, becomes foolhardy. So, too, the man who takes his fill of any kind of pleasure...
Page 25 - The products of art have their excellence in themselves, and so it is enough if when produced they are of a certain quality; but in the case of the virtues, a man is not said to act justly or temperately [or like a just or temperate man] if what he does merely be of a certain sort — he must also be in a certain state of mind...
Page 262 - Nevertheless, instead of listening to those who advise us as men and mortals not to lift our thoughts above what is human and mortal, we ought rather, as far as possible, to put off our mortality and make every effort to live in the exercise of the highest of our faculties; for though it be but a small part of us, yet in power and value it far surpasses all the rest.
Page 138 - ... with regard to the whole action. Therefore that which is done in ignorance, or though not done in ignorance is not in the agent's power, or is done under compulsion, is involuntary...
Page 29 - Every art or science, then, perfects its work in this way, looking to the mean and bringing its work up to this standard; so that people are wont to say of a good work that nothing could be taken from it or added to it, implying that excellence is destroyed by excess or deficiency, but secured by observing the mean.
Page 174 - Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and every opinion, it is bad, ie if it makes him stand even by a false opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which Sophocles...