much and earnest

For since, in the case of one division [of goods] at least, there are three groups–external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul–surely no one would raise a dispute and say that not all of them need be possessed by those who are blessedly happy. For no one would call a person blessedly happy who has no shred of courage, temperance, justice, or practical wisdom, but is afraid of the flies buzzing around him, stops at nothing to gratify his appetite for food or drink, betrays his dearest friends for a pittance, and has a mind as foolish and prone to error as a child’s or a madman’s. But while all accept these claims, they disagree about quantity and relative superiority. For they consider any amount of virtue, however small, to be sufficient, but seek an unlimitedly excessive amount of wealth, possessions, power, reputation, and the like.

We, however, will say to them that it is easy to reach a reliable conclusion on these matters even from the facts themselves. For we see that the virtues are not acquired and preserved by means of external goods, but the other way around, and we see that a happy life for human beings, whether it consists in pleasure or virtue or both, is possessed more often by those who have cultivated their characters and minds to an excessive degree, but have been moderate in their acquisition of external goods, than by those who have acquired more of the latter than they can possibly used, but are deficient in the former. Moreover, if we investigate the matter on the basis of argument, it is plain to see. For external goods have a limit, as does any tool, and all useful things are useful for something; so excessive amounts of them must harm or bring no benefit to their possessors. In the case of each of the goods of the soul, however, the more excessive it is, the more useful it is (if these goods too should be thought of as useful, and not simply as noble).

- Aristotle, Politics, VII.1