Doubting myself
Did Aristotle really say “We are what we repeatedly do”?
For when you doubt you can become anyone different.
…men come to be builders, for instance, by building; harp-players, by playing on the harp: exactly so, by doing just actions we come to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.
The version you’ve probably seen
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Will Durant’s words, not Aristotle’s. In The Story of Philosophy (1926, p. 87) Durant sums Aristotle up in his own voice, “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit”, right after quoting him, and over time the two got merged.
In plain words
Aristotle’s point is that character isn’t something you’re born with and then find out about. You become a builder by building and a harp-player by playing; in the same way you become fair by doing fair things and brave by doing brave ones. Durant’s summary is faithful to that. For someone doubting themselves, the part worth noticing is the order: the doing comes first, and the person follows.
Sit with this line → A few quiet exchanges about what it stirs in you.
Worth knowing
Aristotle wrote in Greek; this is D. P. Chase’s 1847 English. Durant’s 1926 book is public domain in the US but not everywhere, so only his one famous sentence is quoted here.
Browse all quotes · Follow new lines by RSS. No account, no email.
The quote is checked word for word against the original text. Spot a mistake? Tell me. Fixes are listed on Corrections. How it's made