Moreover, how can a good man avoid referring all his actions and all
his feelings to the one standard of whether or not it is laudable? But
he does refer everything to the object of living happily: it follows,
then, that a happy life is laudable; but nothing is laudable without
virtue: a happy life, then, is the consequence of virtue. And this is
the unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from these arguments.

XVII. A wicked life has nothing which we ought to speak of or glory in;
nor has that life which is neither happy nor miserable. But there is a
kind of life that admits of being spoken of, and gloried in, and
boasted of, as Epaminondas saith,

The wings of Sparta's pride my counsels clipp'd.

And Africanus boasts,

Who, from beyond Mæotis to the place
Where the sun rises, deeds like mine can trace?

If, then, there is such a thing as a happy life, it is to be gloried
in, spoken of, and commended by the person who enjoys it; for there is
nothing excepting that which can be spoken of or gloried in; and when
that is once admitted, you know what follows. Now, unless an honorable
life is a happy life, there must, of course, be something preferable to
a happy life; for that which is honorable all men will certainly grant
to be preferable to anything else. And thus there will be something
better than a happy life: but what can be more absurd than such an
assertion? What! when they grant vice to be effectual to the rendering
life miserable, must they not admit that there is a corresponding power
in virtue to make life happy? For contraries follow from contraries.