“Austere, methodical, and sometimes frustratingly unsentimental. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics lacks the drama of Plato and the emotional force of later moralists. Yet its strength lies precisely there: it refuses inspiration and demands formation.”

“Philosophically dazzling and dramatically uneven. It contains some of the most enduring images in Western thought, the Allegory of the Cave chief among them, but it also wanders through long arguments that test patience.”