The man who observes the mean, then, is something of this sort, but has no recognized name.

The man who always makes himself pleasant, if he aims simply at pleasing and has no ulterior object in view, is called obsequious; but if he does so in order to get some profit for himself, either in the way of money or of money’s worth, he is a flatterer.

But he who sets his face against everything is, as we have already said, cross and contentious.

But the extremes seem here to be opposed to one another [instead of to the mean], because there is no name for the mean.

The moderation which lies between boastfulness and irony (which virtue also lacks a name) seems to display itself in almost the same field.