We are what we repeatedly do.
(384 – 322 BCE)
Aristotle of Stagira was a Greek polymath who became the single most influential thinker in Western history for over two millennia. Student of Plato, tutor to Alexander the Great, and founder of the Lyceum, he wrote on everything: physics, biology, zoology, logic, ethics, politics, metaphysics, poetry, rhetoric, and the soul. Almost every branch of knowledge today traces its roots back to a system he either invented or radically shaped.
He was the first to insist that knowledge must begin with careful observation of the real world, then move to classification, and finally to causal explanation. Modern science was born in that method.
Born in northern Greece, orphaned early, Aristotle arrived in Athens at 17 and spent 20 years in Plato’s Academy. After Plato’s death he traveled, conducted marine biology research on the Aegean islands (dissecting everything from octopuses to embryos), tutored the young Alexander the Great, and returned to Athens to found his own school—the Lyceum—where students walked while debating (hence “Peripatetic” philosophy).
After Alexander’s death he was charged with impiety, famously declaring he would not let Athens “sin twice against philosophy” (referencing Socrates). He fled and died a year later.
Aristotle was wealthy, impeccably dressed, spoke with a slight lisp, and had a dry sense of humor. He married twice, loved empirical data, and walked constantly while teaching—earning his school the nickname “the walking school.” He kept detailed notebooks on everything and ran what amounted to the world’s first research institute.
For centuries, “The Philosopher” meant Aristotle and no one else. Medieval scholars (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish) called him “the Master of Those Who Know.” Thomas Aquinas simply referred to him as “The Philosopher” the way people today say “The Bard” for Shakespeare.
Even when his physics was overturned, his logic, ethics, biology classification, and literary criticism remain foundational. Every time you use the words energy, principle, category, substance, tragedy, motive, or maxim, you’re speaking Aristotle’s language.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”
Aristotle did not seek to escape the world—he sought to understand it so completely that living well within it became possible.
More than 2,300 years later, we are all still walking in the shade of his Lyceum.