For legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Laws shape character through habit.
- In plain terms
- Governments train citizens to be good.
- What can you take from it?
- Habits make citizens.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Can law make good people?
- What matters most?
Another view
Laws don't change hearts.
More from Aristotle
For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.
Permalink to quote #49 It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one w…
Permalink to quote #51 Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and espe…
Permalink to quote #48
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