Q0226

Aristotle

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day.
Thinker Aristotle
School Peripatetic School
Source Nicomachean Ethics I.7
Theme Happiness
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Nicomachean Ethics I.7, 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 happiness, 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.). For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0226

MLA: Aristotle. “For one swallow does not make a spring,….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0226.

Chicago: Aristotle. “For one swallow does not make a spring,….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0226.

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 happiness

  1. The human good is activity of soul in accordance with virtue.
  2. Of all that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.
  3. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
  4. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
  5. The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions…be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Browse the happiness theme