The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (350 BC)

TL;DR: Aristotle talks about Life: Virtues, Friends and Happiness

This was a slog to read. There is something intriguing about philosophy with its long passages and obscure words. It is hard to grasp and maybe that's why it's interesting. It seems like a challenge to overcome.

At its core, it's an exploration of life or of the abstract. This book is no different. Aristotle discusses what makes a life well-lived, what makes people happy, what constitutes a good man. He talks about factors that lead people to have good or bad lives; and that good people have virtues that are nurtured in them.

It can get way too abstract sometimes especially when he is differentiating two already abstract concepts. But he does seem like a well-rounded fellow.

Book I: The Object of Life

TL;DR: Life is activity. Happiness comes from virtuous activities

The three types of life: the life of enjoyment, the political, and the contemplative

Happiness, then, is found to be something perfect, self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.

The good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, of if there are more kinds of virtue than once, in accordance with the best kind.

It is those who act that rightly win the honors and rewards in life.

Pleasure is an experience of the soul

Probably it is not right at all to follow the changes of a man's fortunes, because success and failures in life do not depend on these: they are merely complements, as we said, of human life. It is virtuous activities that determine our happiness, and the opposite kind that produce the opposite effect.

When a man bears patiently a number of heavy disasters, not because he does not feel them but because he has a high and generous nature, his nobility shines through.  [...]  the quality of a life is determined by it's activities

Virtue is divided into classes in accordance with this differentiation of the soul. Intellectual and Moral. Wisdom, Understanding, Prudence are Intellectual Virtues. Liberality and Temperance are Moral Virtues.

Book II: Moral Goodness

TL;DR: Your best behavior is between the mean of excess and deficiency.

Right conduct is incompatible with excess or deficiency in feelings and actions

So with virtue. It is by refraining from pleasures that we become temperate, and it is when we have become temperate that we are most able to abstain from pleasures. Similarly with courage; it is by habituating ourselves to make light of alarming situations and to face them that we become brave, and it is when we have become brave that we shall be most able to face an alarming situation

Three kinds of modification that are found in the soul, feelings, faculties and dispositions.

Sphere of Action/Feeling	Excess	Mean	Deficiency
fear and confidence	rashness	courage	cowardice
pleasure and pain	licentiousness	temperance	insensibility
getting and spending(minor)	prodigality	liberality	illiberality
getting and spending(major)	vulgarity	magnificence	pettiness
honor and dishonor(minor)	vanity	magnanimity	pusillanimity
honor and dishonor(major)	ambition	proper ambition	unambitiousness
anger	irascibility	patience	lack of spirit
self-expression	boastfulness	truthfulness	understatement
conversation	buffoonery	wittiness	boorishness
social conduct	obseqiousness/friendliness	friendliness	cantakerousness
shame	shyness	modesty	shamelessness
indignation	envy	righteous indignation	malicious enjoyment

Moral Virtue is a mean. [...] It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency.

3 Practical Rules of Good Conduct

1. Keep away from the extremes
2. Notice the errors which we are liable to fall (because we all have natural tendencies)
3. In every situation one must guard especially against pleasure and pleasant things.

Book III: Moral Responsibility: Two Virtues

TL;DR: An exploration of Courage and Temperance

How the end appears to each individual depends on the nature of his character, whatever this may be.

The courageous man will be one who is fearless in the face of an honorable death, or of some sudden threat of death

The man who faces and fears (or similarly feels confident about) the right things for the right reason and in the right way and at the right time is courageous (for the courageous man feels and acts duly, and as principle directs); [...] It is for a right and noble motive that the courageous man faces the dangers and performs the actions appropriate to his courage.

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The licentious man desires all pleasant things, or the most pleasant; and he is so carried away by his desire that he chooses the before anything else. Hence he feels pain both when he fails to get them and when he desires them (because desire involves pain); and it seems preposterous to feel pain on account of pleasure.

The temperate man holds a mean position with regard to pleasures.  [...] But such pleasures as conduce to health and bodily fitness he will try to secure in moderation and in the right way; and also all other pleasures that are not incompatible with these, or dishonorable or beyond his means

The temperate man desires the right things in the right way and at the right time, and this also is prescribed by rational principle.

Book IV: Other Moral Virtues

TL;DR: Further exploration of the other Moral Virtues

Hence it is more the mark of the liberal man to give to the right people than to receive from the right people, or not to receive from the wrong people; because virtue consists more in doing good than in receiving it, and more in doing fine actions than in refraining from disgraceful ones.

The liberal man is the one who spends in proportion to his means, and on the right objects; and the man who spends excessively is prodigal

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A person is considered to be magnanimous if he thinks that he is worthy of great things, provided that he is worthy of them; because anyone who esteems his own worth unduly is foolish, and nobody who acts virtuously is foolish or stupid.

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The man who gets angry at the right things and with the right people, and also in the right way and at the right time and for the right length of time, is commended.

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Obsequious: to make themselves pleasant they praise everything and offer no resistance, thinking that they must avoid causing annoyance to the people they meet. Those who take the opposite line to these, offering resistance to everything and not worrying at all about those causing annoyance are called surly or quarrelsome. [...] The one that is intermediate [...] is friendliness

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Boasting and understatement [...] The boaster is regarded as one who pretends to have distinguished qualities which he possess either not at all or to a lesser degree than he pretends. The ironical man conversely is thought to disclaim qualities that he does possess, or to depreciate them; while the one who is intermediate between these two is a sort of individualist, sincere both in his daily life and in his speech, acknowledging the qualities that he possess and neither exaggerating nor depreciating them. 

The sincere man [...] is truthful both in his speech and in the way he lives. 

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Those who go too far in being funny are regarded as buffoons and vulgar persons who exert themselves to be funny at all costs and who are more set upon raising a laugh than upon decency of expression and consideration for their victim's feelings. Those who both refuse to say anything funny themselves and take exception to the jokes of other people are regarded as boorish and sour, but those who exercise their humour with good taste are called witty, as one might say 'nimble-witted'  because witticism are considered to be movements of the character, and characters like bodies are judged by the movements.

The intermediate disposition also has the property of tact and the mark of tact is saying and listening to the sort of things that are suitable for a man of honourable and liberal character:

Book V: Justice

TL;DR: Justice is virtue in relation to our treatment to other people

The difference between Virtue and Justice ... their essence in relation to somebody else is Justice, when considered simply as a certain kind of moral state is Virtue.

Justice is that state of virtue of which a just man is said to be capable of doing just acts from choice, and of assigning property - both to himself in relation to another, and to another in relation to a third party.

Three kinds of injury
Those that are done in ignorance are mistakes. [...] When the injury occurs contrary to reasonable expectation it is a misadventure. [...] When the agent acts knowingly but without premeditation it is an injury. [...] When a man does wrong on purpose that he is unjust and wicked.

Book VI: Intellectual Virtues

TL;DR: Intellectual Virtues to arrive at truth

Two parts of the soul, one rational and irrational. [...] Let us call one of them the scientific and the other the calculative part;

The origin of action is choice, the origin of choice is appetition and purposive reasoning.

Five modes of thought; or five ways in which the soul arrives at truth: Art, Science, Prudence, Wisdom and Intuition.

Book VII: Continence and Incontinence: The Nature of Pleasure

TL;DR: An exploration/warning of Pleasure

Three kinds of states of character to be avoided: vice, incontinence and brutishness

The man who pursues excessive pleasures, or pursues necessary pleasure to excess and deliberately for their own sake and not for any ulterior reason, is licentious, because such a person must be unrepentant, and is therefore incurable, since anyone who is incapable of repentance is incurable.

It is because they feel excessive pain that people pursue excessive pleasure

Book VIII: The Kinds of Friendship

TL;DR: The best kind of friendship is between good men

Three kinds of friendship: Based on utility, only in so far as they derive benefit from each other. Based on pleasure, because we find them pleasant. 

Utility is an impermanent thing: it changes according to circumstances.
Regulated by feelings, and their chief interest is in their own pleasure and the opportunity of the moment.

Perfect friendship based on goodness: [...] each loves the other for what he is, and not for any incidental quality.

You cannot get to know each other until you have eaten the proverbial quantity of salt together.

Friendship in the truest sense, the friendship between good men. 

When love is given in accordance with merit that people remain friends and their friendship endures.

Intention is the decisive factor in virtue and character.

Book IX: The Grounds of Friendship

TL;DR: Further exploration on friendships

Our feelings towards our friends reflect out feelings towards ourselves. The friendly feelings that we have towards our neighbors, and the characteristics by which the different kinds of friendship are distinguished seem to be derived from our feelings towards ourselves.

Goodwill seems to be the beginning of friendship. 

It is love when one longs for somebody who is absent, and desires that person's presence. 

Concord is evidently friendship between the citizens of a state because it is concerned with their interests and living conditions

Most people have short memories and are more anxious to be well treated than to treat others well.

We exist through activity (because we exist by living and acting); and the maker of the work exists in a sense, through his activity. [...] The work reveals in actuality what is only potentially

It is the activity of a present action, the expectation of a future one and the memory of a past one that give pleasure. But the greatest pleasure is that which accompanies that activity; and it is similarly the strongest ground for love. 

Loving is a sort of active experience while being loved is a passive one. [...] Everyone feels stronger affection for things that have cost him.

All friendly feelings for others are extensions of a man's feelings for himself. [...] He ought to love himself best. 

It is right for the good man to be self-loving, because then he will both be benefited himself by performing fine actions and also help others. 

Happiness is a kind of activity; and an activity clearly is developed and is not a piece of property already in one's possession. 

Grief is lightened by the sympathy of friends. 

Book X: Pleasure and the life of happiness

TL;DR: Finally, on Happiness, Eudaimonia, comes from our actions and contemplation

The pleasure proper to a serious activity is virtuous, and that which is proper to a bad one is vicious.

Happiness as one of those to be chosen for themselves and not as one of the other kind, because it does not need anything else: it is self-sufficient. The activities that are to be chosen for themselves are those from which nothing is required beyond the exercise of the activity; and such a description is thought to fit actions that accord with goodness; because the doing of fine and good actions is one of the things that are to be chosen for themselves. 

Contemplation is both the highest form of activity. [...] it is the most continuous. [...] The quality that we call self-sufficiency will belong in the highest degree to the contemplative activity. 

We ought [...] do all that we can to live in conformity with the highest that is in us. [...] Therefore for man, too, the best and most pleasant life is the life of the intellect, since the intellect is in the fullest sense the man. So this will life will also be the happiest. 

If a living being is deprived of action, and still further of production, what is left but contemplation.

A man can conduct himself virtuously even from a modest competence.

Just as a piece of land has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish the seed, so the mind of the pupil has to be prepared in its habits if it is to enjoy and dislike the right things. 

( a person has to be willing to change or accept goodness)