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Who really said it

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

Not Aristotle — actually Will Durant Will Durant 1885–1981 · American historian & philosopher
Disputed Free to reuse

The memorable wording was written by Will Durant, not Aristotle. It appears in Durant’s bestseller The Story of Philosophy (1926), where he compressed Aristotle’s argument in the Nicomachean Ethics (Book II) into one crisp sentence of his own. Aristotle never wrote this line in any surviving work — the thought is Aristotelian, but the phrasing is Durant’s.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926) — paraphrasing Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Commonly misattributed to Aristotle.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Aristotle. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the world of Will Durant — American writer, historian & philosopher; author of The Story of Philosophy. Theme: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit". 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 "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit". 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

The source

Actual author
Will Durant
Work
The Story of Philosophy
First published
1926 (New York: Simon & Schuster)
Summarizing
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those 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. The Story of Philosophy, p. 87 — chapter on Aristotle, “Ethics and the Nature of Happiness”

Durant’s original prints “not an act but a habit” without the comma; the now-standard “not an act, but a habit” is a later, lightly re-punctuated variant. The words inside the single quotation marks are Durant citing a translation of Aristotle — the epigram itself is his own.

Read The Story of Philosophy (1926) at the Internet Archive

How we traced it

Public domain

The Story of Philosophy was first published in the United States in 1926, and U.S. works published before 1931 are in the public domain as of 2026 — so Durant’s text, including this sentence, is free to reproduce. The book originally carried a Simon & Schuster copyright, now expired.

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 misattribution

This is one of the internet’s most-shared ‘Aristotle’ quotes — and Aristotle did not write it.

Aristotle (384–322 BC) Misattributed

The exact sentence appears in none of Aristotle’s surviving works. It was composed in 1926 by Will Durant as a paraphrase of the Nicomachean Ethics, as documented by CheckYourFact and the Quote/Counterquote archive. Because Aristotle is far better known than Durant, the line drifted to the more famous name.

The idea — that excellence is built by habit — is genuinely Aristotle’s (Nicomachean Ethics, Book II); the quotable sentence is Will Durant’s.

Context

Why it matters

In the Nicomachean Ethics (Book II), Aristotle argues that moral virtue — aretê, often translated ‘excellence’ — is not innate but acquired through habituation: we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. He calls virtue a hexis, a settled disposition or ‘habit.’

When Will Durant distilled that argument for general readers in 1926, he coined the epigram that stuck. The compression is so clean that it long ago slipped its author and drifted onto Aristotle himself — a textbook case of a memorable paraphrase outshining both the original text and the writer who actually wrote it.

The thought is Aristotle’s. The sentence is Durant’s.

Explore

Filed under

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

Success Work Growth

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.

Did Aristotle say excellence is a habit?snopes.com

Snopes fact-check tracing the line to Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy (1926).
Quote/Counterquote: Aristotle vs. Will Durantblogs.umb.edu

The detailed tracing that pins the wording to page 87 of Durant’s book.
Fact Check: Did Aristotle Say ‘We Are What We Repeatedly Do’?checkyourfact.com

Rates the Aristotle attribution False, with comment from philosopher Richard Kraut.
The Story of Philosophy (1926), full textarchive.org

Durant’s book online — the primary source for the paraphrase.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ross translation)classics.mit.edu

The primary text (Book II) on virtue as habituation that Durant was summarizing.
Quote catalogued under Will Durantgoodreads.com

Reference listing that sources the sentence to The Story of Philosophy.

The real author

Will Durant

Will Durant

1885–1981 · American writer, historian & philosopher; author of The Story of Philosophy

William James Durant (1885–1981) was an American writer and historian who later won a Pulitzer Prize for The Story of Civilization, co-authored with his wife Ariel. His 1926 popularization The Story of Philosophy sold millions of copies and introduced general readers to thinkers from Plato to Dewey. Ironically, his single best-remembered sentence is one the public now hands to the philosopher he was paraphrasing.

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), 87 — paraphrasing Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-are-what-we-repeatedly-do-excellence-then-is-not-an-act/

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