quotations about habit
Each year one vicious habit rooted out,
In time might make the worst Man good throughout.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1738
To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
We are being constantly warned against bad habits--told how easy it is to break them, but, all summed up, this advice doesn't seem to be the right sort. We all know our bad habits, acknowledge them to ourselves, at least, and would gladly rid ourselves of them. But we don't do so and there is a good reason. Trying not to do something is so lacking in initiative, so nugatory a thing that most of us dismiss the idea almost without a second thought.
WILLIAM HENRY MCMASTERS
"On the Contracting of Habits", Originality and Other Essays
A habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD.
CHARLES DUHIGG
The Power of Habit
Ronan did not smoke; he preferred his habits with hangovers.
MAGGIE STIEFVATER
The Raven Boys
If a person has acquired an undesirable habit it is useless to try to press a reform upon him or her until the picture of the old habit has been wiped out and supplanted by a desirable one.
WALTER MATTHEWS
"Habit", Human Life from Many Angles
We are masters of our actions from the beginning up to the very end. But, in the case of our habits, we are only masters of their commencement--each particular little increase being as imperceptible as in the case of bodily infirmities. But yet our habits are voluntary, in that it was once in our power to adopt or not to adopt such or such a course of conduct.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Habit! that skilful but slow-moving arranger who begins by letting our minds suffer for weeks on end in temporary quarters, but whom our minds are none the less only too happy to discover at last, for without it, reduced to their own devices, they would be powerless to make any room seem habitable.
MARCEL PROUST
Swann's Way
We become what we repeatedly do.
SEAN COVEY
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
A habit is a choice that we deliberately make at some point and then stop thinking about, but continue doing, often every day.
CHARLES DUHIGG
The Power of Habit
Habits are either the best of servants or the worst of masters.
CROFT M. PENTZ
The Complete Book of Zingers
When habit clutches a man he becomes a limp mass of nerveless meat.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Habit, like a fog, tends to palliate things and beings. Little by little it obscures the features of a face and rubs down deformities; if you live with a humpback day in and day out, after a time he loses his hump.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Habit will reconcile us to everything but change.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
WILLIAM JAMES
Habit
The Hindu bows down to wood and stone, mostly from "force of habit;" the Parsee worships the sun from the "force of habit;" the Roman Catholic crosses himself at numerous times and places from force of habit; the thoughtless man swears from the "force of habit;" the carpenter cuts his finger, and binds shavings on the wound from the "force of habit;" the shoemaker cuts his, spits, and binds leather on it from the "force of habit;" the post office employee swears by the gummed edgings of postage stamps, as the best of all sticking plasters, from the "force of habit;" the tavern-waiter advices salt to be put on a wound from the "force of habit;" the sailor "hitches up" his trousers from the "force of habit;" the soldier walks erect from the "force of habit;" many a boy says his prayers, but does not pray, from the "force of habit;" and many a girl tells lies, from the "force of habit." Many a hypocritical tradesman, after preparing to swindle his customers on the morrow, goes to prayers, from the "force of habit." The drunkard takes his morning dram, and the good man reads his Bible, much from the "force of habit." The betting man is ready to bet on anything, from the "force of habit." The doctor feels your pulse, and the thief will pick your pocket, from the "force of habit." The savage scalps his victim, and the Frenchman takes his hat off, from the "force of habit," and so strong is this force of habit, that if you will only accustom yourself every night for three months to stand on your head before getting into bed, at the end of that time you will not get in comfortably without first doing so (for some time to come). Then ye of bad habits, strive like men, for habit is overcome with habit. And yet guardians of the young, ye cannot too early teach them good habits, that they may cling to them through their earthly pilgrimage, and be a bulwark against bad ones.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On the Force of Habit", Short Essays
All our "most sacred affections" are merely prosaic habit.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, Jun. 12, 1938
Habits influence the character pretty much as undercurrents influence a vessel, and whether they speed us on the way of our wishes, or retard our progress, their influence is not the less important because imperceptible.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Youth everywhere is forming habits either good or bad, and the future is largely determined by the habits acquired in early life. The idle, careless youth becomes the profligate, worthless man. The careful, temperate, industrious youth becomes the strong, reliable and trusty man. As a rule, men do not become truly great when bound down by evil habits.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
"Habits", Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
A faithful horse had done service for many years in a bark mill. At length he became old and blind and stiff. Kindness then prompted that he be turned out to pasture the remainder of his days. But, to the astonishment of the owner, every day, when it was time to work, the horse would start on a tramp, going round in a circle, just as he had been accustomed to do for so many years. Passers-by would stop and look at the old horse as he went around, just as if he was working as in days gone by. The force of habit had fixed itself upon him.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
"Habits", Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light