more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
A man is scarcely happy if he is very ugly to look at, or of low birth, or solitary and childless.
Clarification
'Happy' is the Greek word 'eudaimon', also sometimes translated as 'flourishing'
Gist of Idea
A man can't be happy if he is ugly, or of low birth, or alone and childless
Source
Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099b03)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.80
A Reaction
This seems a bit shocking for us, when none of these setbacks is the person's fault. Socrates was said to be ugly, and Plato seems to have had no children.
| 5138 | The fine deeds required for happiness need external resources, like friends or wealth [Aristotle] |
| 38 | A man can't be happy if he is ugly, or of low birth, or alone and childless [Aristotle] |
| 1665 | It is nonsense to say a good person is happy even if they are being tortured or suffering disaster [Aristotle] |
| 5871 | Goods in the soul are more worthy than those outside it, as everybody wants them [Aristotle] |
| 1829 | A wise man would be happy even under torture [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5073 | Stoics do not despise external goods, but subject them to reason, and not to desire [Taylor,R on Stoic school] |
| 20862 | Crafts like music and letters are virtuous conditions, and they accord with virtue [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
| 13549 | Nothing bad can happen to a good man [Seneca] |