But, being a man, one will also need external prosperity; for our
nature is not self-sufficient for the purpose of contemplation, but
our body also must be healthy and must have food and other
attention. Still, we must not think that the man who is to be happy
will need many things or great things, merely because he cannot be
supremely happy without external goods; for self-sufficiency and
action do not involve excess, and we can do noble acts without
ruling earth and sea; for even with moderate advantages one can act
virtuously (this is manifest enough; for private persons are thought
to do worthy acts no less than despots-indeed even more); and it is
enough that we should have so much as that; for the life of the man
who is active in accordance with virtue will be happy. Solon, too, was
perhaps sketching well the happy man when he described him as
moderately furnished with externals but as having done (as Solon
thought) the noblest acts, and lived temperately; for one can with but
moderate possessions do what one ought. Anaxagoras also seems to
have supposed the happy man not to be rich nor a despot, when he
said that he would not be surprised if the happy man were to seem to
most people a strange person; for they judge by externals, since these
are all they perceive.
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