Q0105

“We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts.” — Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics II.1)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Nicomachean Ethics II.1. Theme: practice.

English

We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts.
Thinker Aristotle
School Peripatetic School
Source Nicomachean Ethics II.1
Theme Practice
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Nicomachean Ethics II.1 and files it under Peripatetic School. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Aristotle

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher born in Stagira in Macedonia, the son of a court physician. At about seventeen he entered Plato’s Academy in Athens and remained associated with it until Plato’s death in 347.

How to read this passage

Many traditions insist that understanding without practice is incomplete—Stoic exercises, Confucian self-cultivation, Buddhist path, and pragmatist inquiry all treat doing as epistemic. This passage enters that discussion through practice, character.

Concepts in this quote

Practice
Practice is where thought becomes habit: philosophy as a way of living, training, and repeated action.
Character
Character appears in this archive as a live philosophical concern—not a slogan. These verified English passages show how thinkers treat character as a problem of judgment, practice, or explanation.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Aristotle. (n.d.). We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0105

MLA: Aristotle. “We become just by doing just acts, temperate….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0105.

Chicago: Aristotle. “We become just by doing just acts, temperate….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0105.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “We become just by doing just acts, temperate…”?

The passage is attributed to Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.1. The archive attributes this English wording to Nicomachean Ethics II.1 and files it under Peripatetic School. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Aristotle mean by practice?

Many traditions insist that understanding without practice is incomplete—Stoic exercises, Confucian self-cultivation, Buddhist path, and pragmatist inquiry all treat doing as epistemic. This passage enters that discussion through practice, character.

Same thinker

More from Aristotle

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. The human good is activity of soul in accordance with virtue.
  3. Virtues arise in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature; we are fitted by nature to receive them, and are brought to completion by habit.
  4. Virtue is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us.
  5. Man is by nature a political animal.

All quotations by Aristotle

Same theme

More on practice

  1. Virtues arise in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature; we are fitted by nature to receive them, and are brought to completion by habit.
  2. Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the soul is dyed by its impressions.
  3. Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
  4. So too, by doing just acts we become just, by doing temperate acts temperate, and by doing brave acts brave.
  5. Habit and nature come to completion together and transform with each other.

Browse the practice theme