Nicomachean Ethics
by Aristotle
Aristotle's lectures on the good life: happiness (eudaimonia) as activity in accordance with virtue, the doctrine of the mean, habit as the maker of character, friendship, and the contemplative life. Hard going and the source of nearly everything sensible said since about habits and character.
Read it if…
you want to understand why habit books keep quoting Aristotle.
Skip it if…
you want an easy read; take a guide alongside it.
Three things you will actually use
- We become just by doing just acts.
- Virtue is a mean between excess and deficiency.
- Happiness is an activity, not a feeling.
Do this first
Read Book II on habit and the mean; it is the most immediately useful.
Our verdict
Where habit and character begin.
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