The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
If what was said in the Ethics is true, that the happy life is the life according to virtue lived without impediment, and that virtue is a mean, then the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best. And the same principles of virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of constitutions; for the constitution is in a figure the life of the city.
Happiness is the utilization of one's talents along lines of excellence.
Men come together in cities in order to live: they remain together in order to live the good life
All food must be capable of being digested, and that what produces digestion is warmth; that is why everything that has soul in it possesses warmth.
There's many a slip between the cup and the lip.
There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness.
Change in all things is sweet.
Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities.
The difference between a learned man and an ignorant one is the same as that between a living man and a corpse.
