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Who really said it

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance

Not Aristotle — actually Will Durant Will Durant 1885–1981 · American historian & philosopher; wrote it in 1926
Disputed Free to reuse

The sentence is Will Durant’s own prose from The Story of Philosophy (1926), where he summarizes Aristotle’s theory of art. Durant introduces the idea with “says Aristotle,” but the words are his — the line appears nowhere in Aristotle’s surviving works.

Last verified 7 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926) — his paraphrase of Aristotle, not Aristotle's own words

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In context

Evoking the world of Will Durant — American historian & philosopher. Theme: "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it really comes from

Work
The Story of Philosophy
Author
Will Durant
Published
1926 (Simon & Schuster)
Location
Ch. II, “Psychology and the Nature of Art”

Yet the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance; for this, and not the external mannerism and detail, is their reality. ↑ the popular quote lops off Durant's closing clause

In the book the sentence is introduced by “says Aristotle” and sits inside Durant’s own running paraphrase (“Essentially the form of art is an imitation of reality; it holds the mirror up to nature…”). It is Durant’s compression of Aristotle’s ideas about mimesis, not a translated quotation.

Book scan
Durant, The Story of Philosophy at the Internet Archive
The Story of Philosophy (1943 reprint of the 1926 work), full scan at the Internet Archive

How we traced it

Public domain

Durant’s wording was first published in 1926 and is in the public domain in the United States. The idea it compresses is Aristotle’s; the sentence is Durant’s.

Fact-check

The misattribution

The line is one of the most widely shared “Aristotle” quotes on the internet, yet none of the sites that post it can name a work — because there isn’t one. The words are Will Durant’s.

Aristotle

Quote aggregators credit Aristotle with no cited work; the wording matches no passage in his surviving texts and instead reproduces Durant’s 1926 paraphrase, which merely opens with “says Aristotle.”

The idea — that art imitates reality to reveal its inner significance — is genuinely Aristotelian, drawn from the Poetics; the memorable sentence is Will Durant’s, from The Story of Philosophy (1926).

Context

Why it gets misread

Durant’s The Story of Philosophy works by paraphrase: he condenses each thinker into brisk, quotable prose, often folding his own summarizing sentences right after phrases like “says Aristotle.” Read at speed — or clipped for a quote card — those summaries look exactly like direct quotations.

That is how this line, and several other ‘Aristotle’ favorites from the same book, escaped into the world under Aristotle’s name. The underlying thought is faithful to Aristotle’s account of mimesis in the Poetics; the polished wording is Durant’s twentieth-century voice.

Faithful to Aristotle’s idea — but written by his 1926 popularizer, Will Durant.

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Filed under

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

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Go further

Dig deeper

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

The Story of Philosophy — full scanarchive.org

Durant's 1926 book; the Aristotle chapter contains section VI, 'Psychology and the Nature of Art', where the line originates.
Durant's Aristotle chapter, reproducedvinaire.me

Full text of the passage showing the sentence is Durant's paraphrase ('says Aristotle'), not a quotation.
QuotePark source notequotepark.com

Traces the line to Durant's The Story of Philosophy (1926), Ch. II, part VI.
Goodreads (popular misattribution)goodreads.com

Typical unsourced crediting of the line to 'Aristotle', with Goodreads' own caveat that community quotes are unverified.
The Story of Philosophy — backgrounden.wikipedia.org

Context on Durant's 1926 bestseller, whose vivid paraphrases are frequently mistaken for the philosophers' own words.
Aristotle — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The sourced Aristotle quotations; this line does not appear among them.

The real author

About Will Durant

Will Durant

1885–1981 · American historian & philosopher

Will Durant was an American writer and historian best known for The Story of Philosophy (1926), a hugely popular survey that made academic philosophy accessible to a mass audience. With his wife Ariel he later wrote the eleven-volume The Story of Civilization, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1968. His gift for vivid summary is exactly why so many of his paraphrases — this line, and the famous “we are what we repeatedly do… excellence is a habit” — now circulate as if Aristotle himself had written them.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1926), ch. II, “Aristotle and Greek Science,” sec. VI, “Psychology and the Nature of Art.”

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance’?” Last verified 7 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-aim-of-art-is-to-represent-not-the-outward-appearance

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