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 Reference
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.