No function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities - these are thought to be more durable even than

knowledge of the sciences - and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because those who are happy

spend their life most readily and most continuously in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them.

The attribute in question, then, will belong to the happy man, and he will be happy throughout his life; for always,

or by preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action and contemplation, and he will bear the

chances of life most nobly and altogether decorously, if he is ‘truly good’ and ‘foursquare beyond reproach’.

–Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, 10