Did Aristotle say “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act but a habit”?

The exact words

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926), chapter on Aristotle

✕ MisattributedSomeone else said or wrote it first; the famous name was attached later.

What Aristotle really taught

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in the fourth century BC, Aristotle argued that moral virtues are not given to us by nature, nor are they simply learned by reading. They are formed by practice. Just as people become builders by building and musicians by playing, “we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” Repeated actions shape character, and character then makes good actions come naturally.

That idea is the source of the famous quotation, and it is entirely Aristotle’s. What he did not do was compress it into the elegant English sentence everyone shares.

Who wrote the famous version

In 1926 the American historian Will Durant published The Story of Philosophy, a lively introduction to the great philosophers that became a surprise best-seller. In his chapter on Aristotle, Durant paraphrased the Ethics in his own words and ended with a memorable flourish: “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Durant was summarizing, but because the sentence sat in a chapter about Aristotle and sounded like a translation, later readers lifted it out and credited it to the philosopher himself.

How to use it

This is a misattribution with a happy ending: the idea is genuinely Aristotle’s, so you are not misrepresenting him by using it. The accurate credit is “as Will Durant summarized Aristotle,” which is still impressive and saves you from an easy correction.

What people get wrong

Common reading
A direct quote from Aristotle.

Closer to the original
Will Durant's 1926 paraphrase of Aristotle's ethics. It captures Aristotle's idea well, but the words are Durant's.

Timeline

4th century BCAristotle teaches in his Nicomachean Ethics that we become just by doing just acts and brave by doing brave acts.
1926Will Durant's best-selling The Story of Philosophy summarizes this idea, ending with “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
LaterReaders lift Durant's summary and credit it directly to Aristotle.

Use it in a speech

Aristotle taught that we become good at things by doing them. The historian Will Durant put it best: we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. What will your habits be?

~15 secondsto say aloud

Pausebefore “What will your habits be?”

Best spotthe closing question

Questions people ask

Did Aristotle say “we are what we repeatedly do”?

No. The sentence was written by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy (1926) as a summary of Aristotle's ethics.

What did Aristotle actually write?

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, he wrote that virtues are acquired by practice: “we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

How should I credit it?

“Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle,” which is accurate and still connects the line to Aristotle.

Cite this quote

Don't cite this line as Aristotle's words. There is no reliable source showing they said it. The real source is Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, so cite that instead. If you need to mention it, say it is “often attributed to Aristotle” and, if you want a reference, cite this page:

MLA“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit: Meaning and Origin.” QuoteDecoded, 2026, quotedecoded.com/quotes/we-are-what-we-repeatedly-do/.

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