The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

of them); and for him to whom
even honour is a little thing the others must be so too. Hence
proud men are thought to be disdainful.
    The goods of fortune also are thought to contribute towards
pride. For men who are well-born are thought worthy of honour, and
so are those who enjoy power or wealth; for they are in a superior
position, and everything that has a superiority in something good
is held in greater honour. Hence even such things make men prouder;
for they are honoured by some for having them; but in truth the
good man alone is to be honoured; he, however, who has both
advantages is thought the more worthy of honour. But those who
without virtue have such goods are neither justified in making
great claims nor entitled to the name of ‘proud’; for these things
imply perfect virtue. Disdainful and insolent, however, even those
who have such goods become. For without virtue it is not easy to
bear gracefully the goods of fortune; and, being unable to bear
them, and thinking themselves superior to others, they despise
others and themselves do what they please. They imitate the proud
man without being like him, and this they do where they can; so
they do not act virtuously, but they do despise others. For the
proud man despises justly (since he thinks truly), but the many do
so at random.
    He does not run into trifling dangers, nor is he fond of danger,
because he honours few things; but he will face great dangers, and
when he is in danger he is unsparing of his life, knowing that
there are conditions on which life is not worth having. And he is
the sort of man to confer benefits, but he is ashamed of receiving
them; for the one is the mark of a superior, the other of an
inferior. And he is apt to confer greater benefits in return; for
thus the original benefactor besides being paid will incur a debt
to him, and will be the gainer by the transaction. They seem also
to remember any service they have done, but not those they have
received (for he who receives a service is inferior to him who has
done it, but the proud man wishes to be superior), and to hear of
the former with pleasure, of the latter with displeasure; this, it
seems, is why Thetis did not mention to Zeus the services she had
done him, and why the Spartans did not recount their services to
the Athenians, but those they had received. It is a mark of the
proud man also to ask for nothing or scarcely anything, but to give
help readily, and to be dignified towards people who enjoy high
position and good fortune, but unassuming towards those of the
middle class; for it is a difficult and lofty thing to be superior
to the former, but easy to be so to the latter, and a lofty bearing
over the former is no mark of ill-breeding, but among humble people
it is as vulgar as a display of strength against the weak. Again,
it is characteristic of the proud man not to aim at the things
commonly held in honour, or the things in which others excel; to be
sluggish and to hold back except where great honour or a great work
is at stake, and to be a man of few deeds, but of great and notable
ones. He must also be open in his hate and in his love (for to
conceal one’s feelings, i.e. to care less for truth than for what
people will think, is a coward’s part), and must speak and act
openly; for he is free of speech because he is contemptuous, and he
is given to telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony to
the vulgar. He must be unable to make his life revolve round
another, unless it be a friend; for this is slavish, and for this
reason all flatterers are servile and people lacking in
self-respect are flatterers. Nor is he given to admiration; for
nothing to him is great. Nor is he mindful of wrongs; for it is not
the part of a proud man to have a long memory, especially for
wrongs, but rather to overlook them. Nor is he a gossip; for he
will speak neither about himself nor about another, since he cares
not to be praised nor for others to be blamed; nor again is he
given to praise; and for the same reason he is not an evil-speaker,
even about his enemies, except from haughtiness. With regard to
necessary or small matters he is least of all me given to
lamentation or the asking of favours; for it is the part of one who
takes such matters seriously to behave so with respect to them. He
is one who will possess beautiful and profitless things rather than
profitable and useful ones; for this is more proper to a character
that suffices to itself.
    Further, a slow