Famous quote

Maurice A. O'Sullivan mauros at iol.ie
Tue Oct 10 12:31:52 EDT 2000


At 12:07 10/10/00, you wrote:

>I suspect that this is a quote from a Greek philosopher: "To be truly 
>virtuous it is necessary to do less than is permissible and more than is 
>required." Does anyone know who said it? By the way, my quote is from 
>memory and may not be exact.
>

Kevin:
Using Carl's signpost to Aristotle, and the " Greek Words in Proximity " 
feature on my Perseus CD-ROM  I have found  several occurrences of 
hUPERBOLH and ENDEIA: in close proximity

These two seem closest to the elegantly turned phrase you reproduce --- but 
one which I suspect contains more than an element of Occam's Razor <g> [ 
and there are many translations of that, too --- one which may offend 
purists but which I like is: More than enough is too much ]

Eud. Eth. 1249b 20
and any mode of choice and acquisition that either through deficiency or 
excess hinders us from serving and from contemplating God--that is a bad one.

Nic. Eth. 1104a 10
First of all then we have to observe, that moral qualities are so 
constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency-

Regards,
Maurice


Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros at iol.ie






More information about the B-Greek mailing list