Q0225

Aristotle

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

So too, by doing just acts we become just, by doing temperate acts temperate, and by doing brave acts brave.
Thinker Aristotle
School Peripatetic School
Source Nicomachean Ethics II.1
Theme Virtue
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Nicomachean Ethics II.1, within the tradition of Peripatetic School. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of virtue, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Aristotle's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Aristotle. (n.d.). So too, by doing just acts we become just, by doing temperate acts temperate, and by doing brave acts brave. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0225

MLA: Aristotle. “So too, by doing just acts we become….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0225.

Chicago: Aristotle. “So too, by doing just acts we become….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0225.

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 virtue

  1. The human good is activity of soul in accordance with virtue.
  2. 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.
  3. Virtue is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us.
  4. There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.
  5. Begin the morning by saying to yourself: Today I shall meet the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant…

Browse the virtue theme