How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Bekker #s); all Bekker line numbers are approximate, since they are keyed to the original Greek.
Quote #4
Happiness, therefore, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing; and these are not separated...For all these are present in the best activities, and we assert that happiness is these activities—or the best among them. (1.8.1099a25-30)
Just in case you weren't catching Aristotle's drift: happiness is the bestest thing of all good things in the world. All the virtues he'll discuss plus all the external goods (i.e. money, health) come together to create the blissful state of happiness. You just can't get any higher.
Quote #5
For it is impossible or not easy for someone without equipment to do what is noble: many things are done through instruments, as it were—through friends, wealth, and political power. Those who are bereft of some of these...disfigure their blessedness, for a person who is altogether ugly in appearance, or of poor birth, or solitary and childless cannot really be characterized as happy... (I.8.1099b31-1099b5)
Even in the 4th Century B.C., Aristotle knows that those who are born without social privilege have a much harder time doing the things that bring them honor and happiness in this world. And although there is a kind of self-sufficiency in happiness (or "blessedness"), Aristotle's observations here show that even the happy person needs some external goods—like companionship and wealth—to maintain a good life.
Quote #6
But those fortunes that turn out in the contrary way restrict and even ruin one's blessedness, for they both inflict pains and impede many activities. Nevertheless, even in the midst of these, nobility shines through, whenever someone bears up calmly under many great misfortunes, not because of any insensitivity to pain but because he is wellborn and great souled. (I.10.110027-33)
It'd be impossible to talk about happiness without talking about its opposite (hey, it's Aristotle). He is responding to the idea that a person's life is often judged happy or unhappy based on last-minute reversals of fortune. He warns us not let the natural variations in good fortune change our opinion of a person's happiness. Still, there are some catastrophes that really do make us re-assess our bliss levels. Even when we suffer, there's an opportunity to recover a bit of life satisfaction, if we respond with a stiff upper lip.