背诵5-The recipe for happiness

A man's noblest aim is to immortalise himself or imitate the gods; for in doing so he becomes most fully a man and most fully himself. And such self-realisation requires him to act on that desire for knowledge which as a man he naturally possesses. Aristotle's recipe for 'happiness' may be thought a little severe or restricted, and he was perhaps optimistic in ascribing to the generality of mankind his own passionate desire for learning. But his recipe came from the heart: Aristotle counsels us to live our lives as he himself tried to live his own.