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
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