Habits Create Character

"...it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft...This then is the case with virtues also...Thus, in one word, states of character arise out of like activities... It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference. "

- Introduction to Aristotle, edited by Richard Mckeon. Nichomachean Ethics [Bk. II: Ch. 1]

What an awesome passage! I think this one is pretty easy to understand so I won't bore you with a connect-the-dots commentary. This is a great argument against anyone who dares throw an "Unfortunately I wasn't born a chef (for example)" at you. Well hun, Bobby Flay wasn't born a chef either and he made do so you should probably find a different excuse mmkay?