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[39]
The characters described by such names as niggardly, close-fisted, and
stingy all fall short in giving, but they do not covet the goods of others nor wish to
take them. With some of them this is due to an honorable motive of a sort, namely a
shrinking from base conduct—since some persons are thought, or at all events
profess, to be careful of their money because they wish to avoid being forced at some time
or other to do something base; to this class belong the skinflint1 and similar characters,
who get their names from an excessive reluctance to give. But some keep their hands off
their neighbors' goods from fear; they calculate that it is not easy to take what belongs
to others without others taking what belongs to oneself, and so they ‘prefer
（as they say） neither to take nor to give.’
1 κυμινοπρίστης means literally ‘one who saws cumminseed in half.’
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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