A man's life will be happy if he acts in accordance with virtue. Even if a person is but of modest means materially, he can attain happiness by living a virtuous life . Now if arguments were sufficient by themselves to make people decent, the rewards they would command would justifiably have been many and large, as Theognis says, and rightly bestowed. Living by passion they pursue their own pleasures and the means to them, and avoid the opposite pains, and have not even a conception of what is noble and truly pleasant, since they have never tasted it. We must be content if, when all the influences by which we are thought to become good are present, we get some tincture of virtue.
Few individuals lead a virtuous and happy life .
Some civilized young people who truly love what is fine can be instructed in virtue. The mass of common people have no idea of what is noble and truly pleasant. Some thinkers hold that it is by nature that people become good, others that it is by habit, and others that it is by instruction. In general, feelings seem to yield not to argument but only to force. But to obtain the right training for goodness from an early age is a hard thing, unless one has been brought up under right laws.