Classic Wisdom For The Good Life

The good life. In its simplest form, it is what you wish for those you love and care about, as well as for yourself. But what is it? What's the prescription? The truth of the matter is that no doctor can prescribe a pill that will make every heart content. But through the words of extraordinary men and women who have achieved a level of greatness, we can glean insights into passion, dedication, and wisdom. So, for today's astute students of the good life, you hold in your hands an admit-one ticket?a timeless collection of inspiration and wisdom. What you go on to do with it is up to you. "A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life." ?Muhammad Ali "It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference." ?Tom Brokaw "Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive." ?Mel Brooks "Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help." ?Alex Haley "College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don't worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longr be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency." ?Jon Stewart "When the heart is right, the mind and the body will follow. ?Coretta Scott King "My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them. ?Bono

The Professional Life. In the simplest of meanings, it is the part of your day or week or year or entire life that you spend working to make a living. Everyone knows that the way you spend those hours of your day can very easily carry over into every other aspect of your life. Do you know someone lucky enough to love what they do to support themselves? That happiness, pride, and satisfaction doesn’t just stop when they leave the office. It finds its way into their personal relationships and into their community activities. Loving your work is the biggest bonus you can give yourself. Classic Wisdom for the Professional Life has words of wisdom from some of the world’s preeminent business, political, and cultural leaders. Paying heed to one or one hundred of these quotes that really speaks to you can make a difference not only in the way you earn a paycheck now, but also in how you forge a career path for yourself. Be one of the lucky few who knows that a happy professional life is one huge part of really living the good life

Professionals and business people in midlife are increasingly asking themselves "what's next?" in their careers and personal lives. Creating the Good Life draws on the wisdom of the ages to help contemporary men and women plan for satisfying, useful, moral, and meaningful second halves of their lives. For centuries, the brightest people in Western societies have looked to Aristotle for guidance on how to lead a good life and how to create a good society. Now James O'Toole--the Mortimer J. Adler Senior Fellow of the Aspen Institute--translates that classical philosophical framework into practical, comprehensible terms to help professionals and business people apply it to their own lives and work. His book helps thoughtful readers address some of the profound questions they are currently struggling with in planning their futures: • How do I find meaning and satisfaction? • How much money do I need in order to be happy? • What is the right balance between work, family, and leisure? • What are my responsibilities to my community? • How can I create a good society in my own company? Bridging philosophy and self-help, O'Toole's book shows how happiness ultimately is attainable no matter one's level of income, if one uses Aristotle's practical exercises to ask the right questions and to discipline oneself to pursue things that are "good for us." The book is the basis for O'Toole's new "Good Life" seminar, where thoughtful men and women gather to create robust and satisfying life plans.

The great German novelist Thomas Mann implored readers to resist the persistent and growing militarism of the mid-twentieth century. To whom should we turn for guidance during this current era of global violence, political corruption, economic inequality, and environmental degradation? For more than two millennia, the world’s great thinkers have held that the ethically “good life” is the highest purpose of human existence. Renowned political philosopher Fred Dallmayr traces the development of this notion, finding surprising connections among Aristotelian ethics, Abrahamic and Eastern religious traditions, German idealism, and postindustrial social criticism. In Search of the Good Life does not offer a blueprint but rather invites readers on a cross-cultural quest. Along the way, the author discusses the teachings of Aristotle, Confucius, Nicolaus of Cusa, Leibniz, and Schiller, in addition invoking more recent writings of Gadamer and Ricoeur, as guideposts and sources of hope during our troubled times. Among contemporary themes Dallmayr discusses are the role of the classics in education, proper and improper ways of spreading democracy globally, the possibility of transnational citizenship, the problem of politicized evil, and the role of religion in our predominantly secular culture. Dallmayr restores the notion of the good life as a hallmark of personal conduct, civic virtue, and political engagement, and as the road map to enduring peace. In Search of the Good Life seeks to arouse complacent and dispirited citizens, guiding them out of the distractions of shallow amusements and perilous resentments in the direction of mutual learning and civic pedagogy—a direction that will enable them to impose accountability on political leaders who stray from fundamental ethical standards.

Draws on the wisdom and teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher to help readers plan for a more useful, moral, and meaningful life, addressing such profound questions as "How do I find meaning and satisfaction?" and "What are my responsibilities to my community?" 40,000 first printing.

This book presents a discussion of happiness that takes the shape of a dialogue between contemplative knowledge and practice or the wisdom traditions and the social sciences. It examines the different definitions of happiness in relation to wisdom traditions and the impact of these traditions on current research. It explores topics such as the pursuit of a good life, the pursuit of eudaimonia and the meaning of economic and social suffering from the perspective of the social sciences. It further discusses how the social sciences can meet people’s aspirations towards a world of higher well-being in our time, and what the future challenges are. The book includes both theoretical and empirical contributions on the matter and opens up a new line of transdisciplinary research. Overcoming barriers between disciplines and fields of knowledge, the book presents a beneficial cross-fertilization to achieve a wiser model of man.

This volume examines the questions of what constitutes a good life and how one can achieve happiness and well-being, and analyses different ways in which people can strive for a good life. First, it presents an overview on important concepts in psychology that are related to living a good life. Then, a new approach is introduced: the concept of art-of-living as a holistic way to reach happiness. Empirical studies are reported involving a questionnaire for measuring art-of-living, and the validity of the questionnaire is demonstrated with respect to a wide range of concepts. In addition, the volume provides results from empirical studies, showing that, and how, art-of-living and happiness can be enhanced. Several intervention studies are described in detail, which have been performed with different groups of subjects, including pupils, university students and employees. Also, results of interviews are summarized, which were held with people who had been nominated as exemplary artists-of-living. The volume concludes with a description of art-of-living in autobiographies, and presents suggestions for further research with respect to art-of-living.

Explores the ideas expressed in some fifty classic writings that offer the reader insight into the meaning of life and how to live it more fully.