Ancient Greek · 384–322 BCE
Aristotle
Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.
Eudaimonia — flourishing — is not a feeling but a way of living well over a lifetime.
Every thinker worth reading has one true sentence. This is a place to find Aristotle's.
On meaning
Eudaimonia — flourishing — is not a feeling but a way of living well over a lifetime.
Why this thinker still matters
The specific circumstances of Aristotle's life are gone. The questions they wrestled with are not. Reading them now is less like consulting an authority and more like sitting across from someone who has already done a lot of the hard work of thinking.
Key insights
- ◆Read the primary sources when you can, not summaries of summaries.
- ◆Distinguish what the thinker actually wrote from what they are commonly quoted as saying.
- ◆Notice which of their answers resonate — that is data about you as much as about them.
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