in many ways that is ironic , as for the past ten years i have considered aristotles nicomachean ethics not only the quintessence of all ethical treatises but the greatest of all books , although obviously the style of my own writing is not similar to the prosaic and methodical logic and analysis found in a translation of aristotle -- not that this sage who wrote poetics wasnt artistic or that his writings would not have been flattened by multiple islamic and latin translations .