We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

~~Aristotle~~ Will Durant

Misattributed

No. Will Durant wrote it, not Aristotle.

Checked against Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, New Revised Edition (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.; publication year not established from the checked copy), chapter II, section VII, 87, in the text of a page scan, not the image.

Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, New Revised Edition (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.; publication year not established from the checked copy), chapter II, section VII, 87
Checked: In the text of a page scan, not the image

Researched by AI. Entry updated 21 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check

About this quote

Where it comes from

The wording is in Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, chapter II, section VII. Read directly in the Internet Archive scan-derived OCR of an undated Garden City Publishing “New Revised Edition”, printed p. 87: the two sentences are Durant’s prose between marked Aristotelian quotations. The checked copy’s title and copyright pages show that it is a later revised edition, despite the archive metadata’s 1926 label, so it is not described here as a checked first edition. Wikiquote identifies the work’s first publication as 1926 and gives p. 76 in a 1991 reprint, neither of those editions independently checked. The popular version adds a comma after act and changes the passage’s final colon into a full stop. Aristotle’s related account of acquiring virtues by practice is present in Nicomachean Ethics II.1; that does not make Durant’s words a translation.

In context

Durant is explaining Aristotle’s account of excellence, training and habituation. The passage alternates between Durant’s own exposition and explicitly marked quotations from the Nicomachean Ethics. The familiar two sentences belong to Durant’s explanatory prose, not to the passages he marks as quotations.

What it says

Repeated activity shapes character, so excellence is a settled practice rather than one isolated performance.

Often misread

A fair summary of part of Aristotle’s ethics has been turned into a verbatim quotation from him. Attribution to Durant preserves the distinction between an ancient argument and a modern writer’s formulation.

Also shared as

Shortenedwe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: The wording copied directly from the checked Durant OCR, with whitespace joined. Lower-case initial we and final colon reflect its place in the sentence; the preceding and following prose is not stored. Where it was seen

Related quotes

To teach is to influence, and influence never dies. Elbert Hubbard
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Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. Epicurus
Art is not a thing; it is a way. Elbert Hubbard
No one can choose a beneficial direction in life without hope that change for the better is possible. William W. Purkey

Sources

Cite it

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Attributed to Aristotle. No. Will Durant wrote it, not Aristotle. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/we-are-what-we-repeatedly-do/ (checked 21 October 2026).

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Checked by people

People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.