I don't usually read Greek classics, maybe that's why the Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle stood out to me. In fact, I don't read that much literature, I mostly read the news. It's always about some overhyped new technology, a political scandal, or a nobody telling me I need to hustle more. I feel like they're all trying to sell me a product or themselves. This book is refreshing because Aristotle's got nothing to sell you except his perspective on humanity.
I wouldn't recommend treating this book like a youtube video on "8 ways to persuade people in business meetings." It's not super obvious what the book is about and the 'actionable' takeaways aren't bullet-pointed for you. In fact the part about persuasion is actually pretty short, mostly focused around convicing juries in court cases and litigation. More of the book is about basic human conditions and motivations. There are deep insights on emotion like: "Anger is curable by time, but hatred is not." He probably saw understanding people as a prerequisite to persuasion.
The language can be difficult to parse and the foreword by the translator has too much academic jargon for me. The book has held up for thousands of years because Aristotle is explaining human communication, which surprisingly hasn't changed much in the past thousand years.
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