"But the virtues we get by first..." - Quote by Aristotle
But the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
More by Aristotle
“Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.”
“All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.”
“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”
More on Virtue
More on Practice
“Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.”
“All my experiments in Ahimsa have taught me that nonviolence in practice means common labour with the body.”
“The hard discipline, with the exception of one great good point, is fraught with evil. The good point is that men can do one or two things well with very little effort, having practiced them every day through generations.”