Aristotle: "There is some end of the things we do"

"IF, THEN, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is, and of which of the sciences or capacities it is the object."

~Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, 1, 2.

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, by Francesco Rosselli.
Manuscript (Ms. lat. 6309), c. 1480; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.