People do not naturally become morally excellent or practically wise. They become so, if at all, only as the result of lifelong personal and community effort.
AristotleIt is the active exercise of our faculties in conformity with virtue that causes happiness, and the opposite activities its opposite.
AristotleThe ensouled is distinguished from the unsouled by its being alive. Now since being alive is spoken of in many ways, even if only one of these is present, we say that the thing is alive, if, for instance, there is intellect or perception or spatial movement and rest or indeed movement connected with nourishment and growth and decay. It is for this reason that all the plants are also held to be alive . . .
Aristotle