The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

who are not so, except that in each of these
cases he will behave as is befitting; for it is not proper to have
the same care for intimates and for strangers, nor again is it the
same conditions that make it right to give pain to them. Now we
have said generally that he will associate with people in the right
way; but it is by reference to what is honourable and expedient
that he will aim at not giving pain or at contributing pleasure.
For he seems to be concerned with the pleasures and pains of social
life; and wherever it is not honourable, or is harmful, for him to
contribute pleasure, he will refuse, and will choose rather to give
pain; also if his acquiescence in another’s action would bring
disgrace, and that in a high degree, or injury, on that other,
while his opposition brings a little pain, he will not acquiesce
but will decline. He will associate differently with people in high
station and with ordinary people, with closer and more distant
acquaintances, and so too with regard to all other differences,
rendering to each class what is befitting, and while for its own
sake he chooses to contribute pleasure, and avoids the giving of
pain, he will be guided by the consequences, if these are greater,
i.e. honour and expediency. For the sake of a great future
pleasure, too, he will inflict small pains.
    The man who attains the mean, then, is such as we have
described, but has not received a name; of those who contribute
pleasure, the man who aims at being pleasant with no ulterior
object is obsequious, but the man who does so in order that he may
get some advantage in the direction of money or the things that
money buys is a flatterer; while the man who quarrels with
everything is, as has been said, churlish and contentious. And the
extremes seem to be contradictory to each other because the mean is
without a name.
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7
    The mean opposed to boastfulness is found in almost the same
sphere; and this also is without a name. It will be no bad plan to
describe these states as well; for we shall both know the facts
about character better if we go through them in detail, and we
shall be convinced that the virtues are means if we see this to be
so in all cases. In the field of social life those who make the
giving of pleasure or pain their object in associating with others
have been described; let us now describe those who pursue truth or
falsehood alike in words and deeds and in the claims they put
forward. The boastful man, then, is thought to be apt to claim the
things that bring glory, when he has not got them, or to claim more
of them than he has, and the mock-modest man on the other hand to
disclaim what he has or belittle it, while the man who observes the
mean is one who calls a thing by its own name, being truthful both
in life and in word, owning to what he has, and neither more nor
less. Now each of these courses may be adopted either with or
without an object. But each man speaks and acts and lives in
accordance with his character, if he is not acting for some
ulterior object. And falsehood is in itself mean and culpable, and
truth noble and worthy of praise. Thus the truthful man is another
case of a man who, being in the mean, is worthy of praise, and both
forms of untruthful man are culpable, and particularly the boastful
man.
    Let us discuss them both, but first of all the truthful man. We
are not speaking of the man who keeps faith in his agreements, i.e.
in the things that pertain to justice or injustice (for this would
belong to another virtue), but the man who in the matters in which
nothing of this sort is at stake is true both in word and in life
because his character is such. But such a man would seem to be as a
matter of fact equitable. For the man who loves truth, and is
truthful where nothing is at stake, will still more be truthful
where something is at stake; he will avoid falsehood as something
base, seeing that he avoided it even for its own sake; and such a
man is worthy of praise. He inclines rather to understate the
truth; for this seems in better taste because exaggerations are
wearisome.
    He who claims more than he has with no ulterior object is a
contemptible sort of fellow (otherwise he would not have delighted
in falsehood), but seems futile rather than bad; but if he does it
for an object, he who does it for the sake of reputation or honour
is (for a boaster) not very much to be blamed, but he who does it
for money, or the things that lead to money,