Morality - Part II

Virtue, Happiness, and Habit

Daily Reflection

“As it is not one swallow or a fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a [person] blessed and happy.”
— Aristotle¹

Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had an enjoyable weekend.

This week, we’re going to continue our discussion around morality, pivoting from the conversation which occurred between Confucian thought, the Tao Te Ching, and Buddhism over to the conversation which happened between Greek Philosophy, the Roman Empire, and eventually Christian Theologians.

Today, we begin with the ancient Greeks. Fittingly, we start with an idea from Aristotle—one of the most well known philosophers of his time and ours.

The above quote is most often heard in the modern day as, “Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

However, this line is actually a synopsis and paraphrase inspired by a handful of selected Aristotelian quotes. This version was penned in the 1920s by Will Durant.²

However, in many ways this simplistic and even melodic line actu…