Today we have the final installment in our What Would Aristotle Do? +1 series.
We’ve gotta talk about habits.
You know that E P I C Aristotle quote: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”?
Well, hate to break the news, but Aristotle didn’t actually say that.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, he said this: “There is a further qualification [for attaining eudaimonic happiness]: in a complete lifetime. One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly, neither can one day, or a brief space of time, make a man blessed and happy.”
It was philosopher Will Durant who poetically paraphrased that passage into his brilliant line:“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
In any case, we definitely are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence (or “virtue”—the word Aristotle actually used here was, again, “ARETE!”) is not an ACT. It’s a habit.
A single swallow doesn’t make a summer. A single virtuous deed does not make your soul happy.
It takes a lifetime of effort.
Here’s to that effort.
One moment at a time.
+1. +1. +1.
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