How to Flourish

Aristotle’s essential guide to human flourishing—the Nicomachean Ethics—in a lively new abridged translation

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is one of the greatest guides to human flourishing ever written, but its length and style have left many readers languishing. How to Flourish is a carefully abridged version of the entire work in a highly readable and colloquial new translation by Susan Sauvé Meyer that makes Aristotle’s timeless insights about how to lead a good life more engaging and accessible than ever before.

For Aristotle, flourishing involves becoming a good person through practice, and having a life of the mind. To that end, he draws vivid portraits of virtuous and vicious characters and offers sound practical advice about everything from eating and drinking to managing money, controlling anger, getting along with others, and telling jokes. He also distinguishes different kinds of wisdom that are essential to flourishing and offers an unusual perspective on how to appreciate our place in the universe and our relation to the divine.

Omitting Aristotle’s digressions and repetitions and overly technical passages, How to Flourish provides connecting commentary that allows readers to follow the continuous line of his thought; it also features the original Greek on facing pages. The result is an inviting and lively version of an essential work about how to flourish and lead a good life.

“This is a splendid introduction to Aristotle’s conception of happiness, in his own words. The translation is at once elegant, readable, and precise, and Susan Sauvé Meyer’s crisp prefatory explanations highlight and clarify the essence of Aristotle’s argument at each stage. The abbreviated text lets Aristotle’s train of thought stand out clearly, and the omitted parts—digressions and the like—are briefly summarized. It is a remarkable achievement.”—David Konstan, author of The Origin of Sin: Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity