Full Idea
The pleasure or pain that accompanies people's acts should be taken as a sign of their dispositions.
Gist of Idea
Character is revealed by the pleasures and pains people feel
Source
Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b04)
Book Reference
Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.95
A Reaction
Nice. Nothing reveals a person quicker than their apparently finding rather strange sources for pleasure or dislike. A nice short cut for novelists wanting to reveal character.
Related Idea
Idea 4394 People develop their characters through the activities they pursue [Aristotle]