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  • The Quest for Character

  • What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us About Our Search for Good Leaders
  • By: Massimo Pigliucci
  • Narrated by: Alan Carlson
  • Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (33 ratings)

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The Quest for Character

By: Massimo Pigliucci
Narrated by: Alan Carlson
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Publisher's summary

What Socrates’s greatest failure reveals about an ancient question: Can we teach our leaders to be better people?

Is good character something that can be taught? In 430 BCE, Socrates set out to teach the vain, power-seeking Athenian statesman Alcibiades how to be a good person—and failed spectacularly. Alcibiades went on to beguile his city into a hopeless war with Syracuse, and all of Athens paid the price.

In The Quest for Character, philosophy professor Massimo Pigliucci tells this famous story and asks what we can learn from it. He blends ancient sources with modern interpretations to give a full picture of the philosophy and cultivation of character, virtue, and personal excellence—what the Greeks called arete. At heart, The Quest for Character isn’t simply about what makes a good leader. Drawing on Socrates as well as his followers among the Stoics, this book gives us lessons perhaps even more crucial: how we can each lead an excellent life.

©2022 Massimo Pigliucci (P)2022 Basic Books
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What listeners say about The Quest for Character

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Transformational Reading

This is a great foundational guild to the path of virtue and the building blocks of a good and worthy character.

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Thought Provoking

This book presents an age-old question and provides us thoughts from wise people on what it takes to develop and maintain a good character. The list provided at the end is superb. The sources cited are ones I will investigate in my journey.

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The best stoic character text

Concise. Excellent reading. Will listen again and again, and recommend it to others. Thank you.

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another great work by Massimo

only suggestion would be to include a PDF of the syllabus in last chapter with the audio book

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Not as wonderful as his other books

Good information but not as charming or enlightening as his other works. A bit let down.

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Disappointing

This book uses long winded ancient historical references, and warped current events (including debunked COVID “scamdemic” propaganda) to explain how character traits from Stoicism can be applied to live a more productive life. Next time, just stick to the philosophy and leave out the political bias and mass psychological manipulation.

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