People who fall short with regard to pleasures and
delight in them less than they should are hardly found; for such
insensibility is not human. Even the other animals distinguish
different kinds of food and enjoy some and not others; and if there is
any one who finds nothing pleasant and nothing more attractive than
anything else, he must be something quite different from a man; this
sort of person has not received a name because he hardly occurs. The
temperate man occupies a middle position with regard to these objects.
For he neither enjoys the things that the self-indulgent man enjoys
most-but rather dislikes them-nor in general the things that he should
not, nor anything of this sort to excess, nor does he feel pain or
craving when they are absent, or does so only to a moderate degree,
and not more than he should, nor when he should not, and so on; but
the things that, being pleasant, make for health or for good
condition, he will desire moderately and as he should, and also
other pleasant things if they are not hindrances to these ends, or
contrary to what is noble, or beyond his means. For he who neglects
these conditions loves such pleasures more than they are worth, but
the temperate man is not that sort of person, but the sort of person
that the right rule prescribes.
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