Aristotle's Version
Much earlier, Aristotle states the same principle in the Nichomachean Ethics (Book 2):
Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult -- to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue; For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
Read more about this topic: Anna Karenina Principle
Famous quotes containing the words aristotle and/or version:
“Through Plato Aristotle came to believe in God, but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him, but Aristotle thought God through logically and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover.”
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See Exodus 22:8 for a different version of this fourth commandment.