What has soul in it differs from what has not, in that the former displays life. Now this word has more than one sense, and provided any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that thing is living. Living, that is, may mean thinking or perception or local movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth. Hence we think of plants also as living, for they are observed to possess in themselves an originative power through which they increase or decrease in all spatial directions.

So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency.

When we deliberate it is about means and not ends.

Man's best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish for his sake, even if no one is to know of it.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.

[I]t is rather the case that we desire something because we believe it to be good than that we believe a thing to be good because we desire it. It is the thought that starts things off.