Short Excerpts in Great Literature – LEVEL TWELVE

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Intended for high school seniors (but could also be read by juniors), this book contains very important excerpts from great masters such as Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Shakespeare. If the very names Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas make you concerned, “Oh no, my student could never understand that!”, then we assure you that with the great number of annotations, explanations, and vocabulary entries that we have added, the average student should do just fine understanding what is being taught by these masters of wisdom.

Plato (by giving us the thought of his teacher, Socrates) teaches us in the Meno and Apology the importance of the intellectual life and that one must pursue it to the best of one’s abilities, even to the point of dying for the truth. In the excerpt from his wonderful Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle shows us that human happiness depends on the virtuous life. St. Thomas in his Summa Theologica takes all the natural wisdom of Aristotle and others, and uses it to organize and teach the very highest science, theology.

Every Catholic high school student should, before graduating, get at least get a tiny taste of the wisdom of the greatest philosophers! That is precisely what this book provides.

Suggested grades: 11-12 or adult. 56 pages.