Work
Nicomachean Ethics
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About this work
The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's central work on how to live well, and arguably the most influential book on ethics ever written. Its question is the goal of a human life, which Aristotle answers with eudaimonia, usually translated as flourishing. The path to it runs through virtue, understood not as a rule but as a habit: the trained disposition to feel and act rightly, found in the mean between extremes.
About the author — Aristotle
Aristotle (384 to 322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and polymath whose work spans logic, biology, politics, and the arts. A student of Plato and founder of his own school, the Lyceum, he set much of the agenda for Western thought for the next two thousand years.
9 quotes from this work
For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
Happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
The best friend is he that, when he wishes a person's good, wishes it for that person's own sake.
One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
Any one can get angry — that is easy — but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.
Our characters are the result of our conduct.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
We are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
People also ask
What is the Nicomachean Ethics about?
How to live a good and flourishing life. Aristotle argues that the highest human good is eudaimonia, reached by cultivating virtues of character through habit and practical wisdom.
What is the main idea of the Nicomachean Ethics?
That virtue is a habit, not a feeling or a rule. We become good by acting well repeatedly until right action becomes second nature, aiming at the mean between excess and deficiency.
What are the virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics?
Aristotle treats virtues such as courage, temperance, generosity, magnanimity, patience, truthfulness, friendliness, and justice, each a balanced midpoint between two extremes.