The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

(for which reason also one is easy and the other
difficult—to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these
reasons also, then, excess and defect are characteristic of vice,
and the mean of virtue;
For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
    Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice,
lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being
determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which
the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean
between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which
depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices
respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions
and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is
intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition
which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is
best and right an extreme.
    But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for
some have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite,
shamelessness, envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft,
murder; for all of these and suchlike things imply by their names
that they are themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies
of them. It is not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to
them; one must always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with
regard to such things depend on committing adultery with the right
woman, at the right time, and in the right way, but simply to do
any of them is to go wrong. It would be equally absurd, then, to
expect that in unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action there should
be a mean, an excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there
would be a mean of excess and of deficiency, an excess of excess,
and a deficiency of deficiency. But as there is no excess and
deficiency of temperance and courage because what is intermediate
is in a sense an extreme, so too of the actions we have mentioned
there is no mean nor any excess and deficiency, but however they
are done they are wrong; for in general there is neither a mean of
excess and deficiency, nor excess and deficiency of a mean.
<
    div class="section" title="7">
7
    We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also
apply it to the individual facts. For among statements about
conduct those which are general apply more widely, but those which
are particular are more genuine, since conduct has to do with
individual cases, and our statements must harmonize with the facts
in these cases. We may take these cases from our table. With regard
to feelings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the
people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many
of the states have no name), while the man who exceeds in
confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in
confidence is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains—not all
of them, and not so much with regard to the pains—the mean is
temperance, the excess self-indulgence. Persons deficient with
regard to the pleasures are not often found; hence such persons
also have received no name. But let us call them ‘insensible’.
    With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is
liberality, the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness. In
these actions people exceed and fall short in contrary ways; the
prodigal exceeds in spending and falls short in taking, while the
mean man exceeds in taking and falls short in spending. (At present
we are giving a mere outline or summary, and are satisfied with
this; later these states will be more exactly determined.) With
regard to money there are also other dispositions—a mean,
magnificence (for the magnificent man differs from the liberal man;
the former deals with large sums, the latter with small ones), an
excess, tastelessness and vulgarity, and a deficiency,
niggardliness; these differ from the states opposed to liberality,
and the mode of their difference will be stated later. With regard
to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the excess is
known as a sort of ‘empty vanity’, and the deficiency is undue
humility; and as we said liberality was related to magnificence,
differing from it by dealing with small sums, so there is a state
similarly related to proper pride, being concerned with small
honours while that is concerned with great. For it is possible to
desire honour as one ought, and more than one ought, and less, and
the man who exceeds in his desires is called