Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

Let this suffice as an account of Courage: from what has been said it will not be difficult to form at all events a rough conception of its nature.10.

After Courage let us speak of Temperance; for these appear to be the virtues of the irrational parts of the soul.

Now we have said¹ that Temperance is the observance of the mean in relation to pleasures （for it is concerned only in a lesser degree and in a different way with pains）; and Profligacy also is displayed in the same matters. Let us then now define the sort of pleasures to which these qualities are related. [2]

Now we must make a distinction between pleasures of the body and pleasures of the soul: Take for instance ambition, or love of learning: the lover of honor or of learning takes pleasure in the thing he loves without his body being affected at all; the experience is purely mental. But we do not speak of men as either temperate or profligate in relation to the pleasures of ambition and of learning. Nor similarly can these terms be applied to the enjoyment of any of the other pleasures that are not bodily pleasures: those who love hearing marvellous tales and telling anecdotes, and who spend their days in trivial gossip, we call idle chatterers, but not profligates;