# Quote — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

> After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss pleasure. For it is thought to be most intimately connected with our human nature, which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain; it is thought, too, that to enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue of character. For these things extend right through life, with a weight and power of their own in respect both to virtue and to the happy life, since men choose what is pleasant and avoid what is painful; and such things, it will be thought, we should least of all omit to discuss, especially since they admit of much dispute.

- Author: [Aristotle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle.md)
- Book: [Nicomachean Ethics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Book_X) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/after-these-matters

## More from this book

> For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.... Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such... Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos: Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health; but pleasantest is it to win what we love.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/for-pleasure-is-a-state.md)

> Any one can get angry — that is easy — or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.

p. 203 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/any-one-can.md)

> Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/without-friends-no-one.md)