The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

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self-love, which is a bad one); it is just, therefore, that men who
are lovers of self in this way are reproached for being so. That it
is those who give themselves the preference in regard to objects of
this sort that most people usually call lovers of self is plain;
for if a man were always anxious that he himself, above all things,
should act justly, temperately, or in accordance with any other of
the virtues, and in general were always to try to secure for
himself the honourable course, no one will call such a man a lover
of self or blame him.
    But such a man would seem more than the other a lover of self;
at all events he assigns to himself the things that are noblest and
best, and gratifies the most authoritative element in and in all
things obeys this; and just as a city or any other systematic whole
is most properly identified with the most authoritative element in
it, so is a man; and therefore the man who loves this and gratifies
it is most of all a lover of self. Besides, a man is said to have
or not to have self-control according as his reason has or has not
the control, on the assumption that this is the man himself; and
the things men have done on a rational principle are thought most
properly their own acts and voluntary acts. That this is the man
himself, then, or is so more than anything else, is plain, and also
that the good man loves most this part of him. Whence it follows
that he is most truly a lover of self, of another type than that
which is a matter of reproach, and as different from that as living
according to a rational principle is from living as passion
dictates, and desiring what is noble from desiring what seems
advantageous. Those, then, who busy themselves in an exceptional
degree with noble actions all men approve and praise; and if all
were to strive towards what is noble and strain every nerve to do
the noblest deeds, everything would be as it should be for the
common weal, and every one would secure for himself the goods that
are greatest, since virtue is the greatest of goods.
    Therefore the good man should be a lover of self (for he will
both himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his
fellows), but the wicked man should not; for he will hurt both
himself and his neighbours, following as he does evil passions. For
the wicked man, what he does clashes with what he ought to do, but
what the good man ought to do he does; for reason in each of its
possessors chooses what is best for itself, and the good man obeys
his reason. It is true of the good man too that he does many acts
for the sake of his friends and his country, and if necessary dies
for them; for he will throw away both wealth and honours and in
general the goods that are objects of competition, gaining for
himself nobility; since he would prefer a short period of intense
pleasure to a long one of mild enjoyment, a twelvemonth of noble
life to many years of humdrum existence, and one great and noble
action to many trivial ones. Now those who die for others doubtless
attain this result; it is therefore a great prize that they choose
for themselves. They will throw away wealth too on condition that
their friends will gain more; for while a man’s friend gains wealth
he himself achieves nobility; he is therefore assigning the greater
good to himself. The same too is true of honour and office; all
these things he will sacrifice to his friend; for this is noble and
laudable for himself. Rightly then is he thought to be good, since
he chooses nobility before all else. But he may even give up
actions to his friend; it may be nobler to become the cause of his
friend’s acting than to act himself. In all the actions, therefore,
that men are praised for, the good man is seen to assign to himself
the greater share in what is noble. In this sense, then, as has
been said, a man should be a lover of self; but in the sense in
which most men are so, he ought not.
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9
    It is also disputed whether the happy man will need friends or
not. It is said that those who are supremely happy and
self-sufficient have no need of friends; for they have the things
that are good, and therefore being self-sufficient they need
nothing further, while a friend, being another self, furnishes what
a man cannot provide by his own effort; whence the saying ‘when
fortune is kind, what need of friends?’ But it seems strange, when
one assigns all good things to the happy man, not to assign
friends, who are