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Who really said it

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man

Written by Aristotle 384–322 BC · Greek philosopher, founder of the Lyceum
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This is a real Aristotle sentence, and it can be pinned exactly: Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, chapter 4 (Bekker 1105b), in the English translation W. D. Ross published for Oxford in 1925. The wording is Ross’s — other translators render the same Greek quite differently — but the thought and the sentence structure are Aristotle’s.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, chapter 4 (Bekker 1105b), trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford, 1925). Verified by Quotle.info. Verbatim: “It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good.”

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Provenance

The source

Work
Nicomachean Ethics
Location
Book II, chapter 4 — Bekker 1105b
Translation
W. D. Ross, in The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, vol. 9 (Oxford University Press / Humphrey Milford), first edition 1925
Composed
4th century BC; dated c. 350 BC by the Internet Classics Archive

Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as the just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as just and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. Book II, chapter 4

W. D. Ross’s translation, Nicomachean Ethics II.4. The sentence immediately after this one is Aristotle’s complaint that most people “take refuge in theory” instead.

Read Book II in Ross’s translation at Wikisource

How we verified it

  • The exact wording appears in Book II, chapter 4 of W. D. Ross’s translation, transcribed from The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, vol. 9, at Wikisource ↗, whose header records a first edition of 1925.
  • A second, independent transcription of the same Ross text carries the identical sentence at the MIT Internet Classics Archive ↗.
  • Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ lists the line under Nicomachean Ethics Book II with the reference 1105b.9.
  • Perseus ↗ confirms the passage sits at Bekker page 1105b, section 4, where H. Rackham’s 1934 Loeb translation gives the same argument in different English.
Public domain

Aristotle’s Greek has been out of copyright for centuries, and the English shown here is W. D. Ross’s translation, first published in 1925 by Oxford University Press / Humphrey Milford — before the 1931 US threshold, so it is public domain in the United States. Note that this applies to Ross’s wording specifically: later renderings, such as H. Rackham’s 1934 Loeb version, are separate works with their own status.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The line people quote instead

This sentence is authentic, so the problem here is not a fake — it is a substitution. The version of this idea that actually circulates under Aristotle’s name was written in the twentieth century by an American popular historian, and the English of the real sentence belongs to a translator who is almost never named.

Will Durant, not Aristotle Paraphrase

Durant wrote this while summarising Aristotle’s ethics in The Story of Philosophy (1926), p. 87: “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation … we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” His own footnote points the reader to Nicomachean Ethics ii, 4 — the very chapter this page’s sentence comes from (Quote/Unquote ↗, Wikiquote ↗).

W. D. Ross, the translator Translation

Aristotle wrote in Greek; “It is well said, then …” is Ross’s 1925 phrasing (Wikisource ↗). H. Rackham’s 1934 Loeb renders the same Greek as “a man becomes just by doing just actions and temperate by doing temperate actions” (Perseus ↗) — so quoting these words as Aristotle’s exact words is a half-truth worth naming.

Aristotle did write this, in Greek, in Nicomachean Ethics Book II, chapter 4 — cited as 1105b.9 in Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗. What he did not write is the tidier “excellence is a habit” slogan that took its place.

Context

Why it mattered

Aristotle is answering an objection he raises against himself. If you only become just by doing just things, but a just act is by definition what a just person does, the whole thing looks circular — you would need the virtue before you could ever acquire it. His way out is that the beginner’s just act and the just person’s just act are not the same act. The beginner does the right thing clumsily, for mixed reasons, without settled character; the just person does it knowingly, chooses it for its own sake, and does it from a stable disposition.

That is why the sentence lands where it does in the chapter. Doing the acts is not sufficient for virtue — but it is absolutely necessary, and Aristotle’s next line is a jab at people who skip it: most of them “take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way.”

You do not reason your way into good character. You practise your way into it.

Read the full story

The Greek verb behind Ross’s “is produced” carries the sense of coming to be — character as something that emerges over time rather than something switched on. Aristotle’s working analogy earlier in Book II is craft: people become builders by building and harpists by playing the harp, and they become just, temperate and brave the same way.

Two thousand years later Will Durant compressed this whole chapter into a single memorable line for a popular audience — and that compression, not Aristotle’s own sentence, is what most people now quote as “Aristotle.”

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Character Growth Work

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Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Nicomachean Ethics, Book II (Ross translation)en.wikisource.org

Full text of Book II in W. D. Ross's translation; the sentence appears in chapter 4.
Aristotle — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Lists this line in its Nicomachean Ethics Book II section with the citation 1105b.9.
Nicomachean Ethics, Book II (Internet Classics Archive)classics.mit.edu

A second independent transcription of the Ross translation containing the same sentence.
Nicomachean Ethics at Bekker page 1105bperseus.tufts.edu

H. Rackham's Loeb translation of the same passage, useful for seeing how much the English wording varies by translator.
Will Durant — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Documents that "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit" is Durant's own line from The Story of Philosophy (1926), p. 87.
"It's a MUCH More Effective Quotation to Attribute It to Aristotle"blogs.umb.edu

Traces the Durant paraphrase to page 87 of The Story of Philosophy and to Durant's own footnote citing Ethics ii, 4.

The true author

Aristotle

Aristotle

384–322 BC · Greek philosopher · Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle studied for twenty years under Plato, tutored the young Alexander of Macedon, and founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens. The Nicomachean Ethics — probably lecture material rather than a polished book, and named for his son Nicomachus — is where he argues that character is not something you are born with or reason your way into, but something you build by repetition. Virtue, on his account, is a skill: you become just the way you become a builder or a harpist, by doing the thing badly until you do it well.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this source

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, chapter 4 (Bekker 1105b). In The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, vol. 9, translated by W. D. Ross. London: Oxford University Press / Humphrey Milford, 1925.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/it-is-well-said-then-that-it-is-by-doing-just-acts-that-the/

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