Did Aristotle say, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”? Not in those words. The familiar sentence was written by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy in 1926 while he was summarizing Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle did argue that character develops through repeated action, but the polished quotation belongs to Durant.
The compact evidence is collected in the Source Center record for Will Durant’s 1926 wording. You can also visit the Aristotle author profile, open the Will Durant author profile or browse wisdom quotes with source context.
Quick verdict: Durant wrote the quotation
| Popular attribution | Aristotle |
|---|---|
| Documented author | Will Durant |
| Documented wording | “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” |
| Source | The Story of Philosophy, Chapter II, “Aristotle and Greek Science” |
| Publication | Simon and Schuster, New York, 1926 |
| Source status | Durant’s paraphrase of Aristotle’s account of habit and moral virtue, not a verbatim Aristotle quotation |
| Evidence record | Open the Source Center entry and primary text |
What is the familiar quotation?
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926), summarizing Aristotle
The quotation is often shortened to “Excellence is a habit” or printed below Aristotle’s name without a book, passage or translator. Its message fits Aristotle’s ethics so well that the attribution feels plausible. That is precisely why the distinction between an idea and a verbatim quotation matters.
Durant was not inventing an unrelated slogan and attaching it to an ancient philosopher. He was explaining a genuine Aristotelian argument in memorable twentieth-century English. The thought is Aristotelian; the famous two-sentence formulation is Durant’s.
Where does “we are what we repeatedly do” appear?
The sentence appears in Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers, first published by Simon and Schuster in 1926. It is found in Chapter II, “Aristotle and Greek Science,” within the section on ethics and happiness.
In that section Durant compresses Aristotle’s account of training, habituation and moral character into a brisk narrative for general readers. The famous line is part of Durant’s prose. It is not set apart as a translated quotation from Aristotle, and its vocabulary does not come from a cited line in the Nicomachean Ethics.
The complete 1926 edition can be checked in the public-domain transcription and scan of The Story of Philosophy. The title page identifies Durant as the author, Simon and Schuster as the publisher and 1926 as the publication year.
What did Aristotle actually say about habit?
Aristotle’s underlying argument appears in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics. In W. D. Ross’s translation, moral virtue develops “as a result of habit.” Aristotle explains that people learn practical skills by exercising them: builders become builders by building, and character is formed through the kinds of actions a person repeatedly chooses.
He then applies the point to ethics. People become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts and brave by doing brave acts. Repeated action does not merely display a finished character; it helps produce a stable disposition. Training matters because the pattern of action shapes the person who acts.
You can compare Durant’s summary with the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, in the Internet Classics Archive. The connection is real, but the wording is visibly different. Aristotle offers an extended philosophical argument; Durant gives readers a concise modern synthesis.
Why is the quotation attributed to Aristotle?
A summary can lose its narrator when it is copied. Durant names Aristotle throughout the chapter, so a reader extracting only the final aphorism may assume that every sentence is a translation of Aristotle. Later quotation books, posters and websites can then remove the surrounding prose and retain only the more famous name.
The sentence also has the compact rhythm people expect from a classical maxim. “We are what we repeatedly do” states a premise; “Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” delivers the conclusion. That polished structure travels easily as a social caption, classroom poster or productivity slogan.
Search engines and image platforms often reinforce the shortened attribution because many pages repeat one another. Repetition can show popularity, but it cannot replace a dated source. Here the dated source points to Durant.
Is the quotation false?
The sentence is authentic as a Will Durant quotation and fair as a compact summary of one important part of Aristotle’s ethics. What is false is presenting it as Aristotle’s exact wording. A careful description can preserve both sides of the history: Durant wrote the line while explaining Aristotle’s account of habituation.
That wording is more informative than simply labelling the quotation “fake.” It tells readers who wrote the sentence, when it appeared and why Aristotle’s name became attached to it.
How should the quote be cited?
- For the exact popular wording: cite Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926), Chapter II.
- When discussing the idea: explain that Durant is summarizing Aristotle’s account of habituation in Nicomachean Ethics, Book II.
- Do not write: “Aristotle said, ‘We are what we repeatedly do’” without qualification.
- For a short graphic: use “Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle” if there is room, or “Will Durant” when only one attribution can be shown.
What does the quotation mean?
The line argues that excellence is not secured by one impressive performance. A reliable ability or virtue is built through a pattern: practice, correction, repeated choice and consistency. One courageous act can matter greatly, but a courageous character requires more than one isolated moment.
Aristotle’s account is more demanding than the modern slogan “repeat anything until it becomes a habit.” The quality, purpose and circumstances of an action matter. Repeatedly acting badly can form a bad disposition just as repeated good action can support virtue. Habit is therefore not automatically excellence; it is one of the ways character is formed.
Frequently asked questions
Did Aristotle say “Excellence is not an act, but a habit”?
No. Will Durant wrote that sentence in 1926 while summarizing Aristotle. Aristotle’s own surviving ethical works discuss how virtue is developed through habit and repeated action, but they do not contain Durant’s exact wording.
Who said “We are what we repeatedly do”?
Will Durant is the documented author of the familiar English sentence. It appears in his book The Story of Philosophy, published in 1926.
Is the idea still Aristotle’s?
Yes, in a qualified sense. Durant is accurately summarizing Aristotle’s emphasis on habituation and repeated action in moral development. The philosophical idea is grounded in Aristotle; the concise modern formulation is Durant’s.
Can I use the quote with Aristotle’s name?
It is better to credit Will Durant or write “Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle.” That keeps the useful connection to Aristotle without turning a twentieth-century paraphrase into a false ancient quotation.
Sources and further reading
- Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926), complete edition
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, translated by W. D. Ross
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Aristotle’s Ethics”
For another practical use of the saying, compare the Monday motivation collection for work. Its quotation list now connects back to this attribution record so the motivational use and the historical source remain easy to distinguish.