The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. – Samuel Johnson
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. – Mark Twain
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. – Thomas Paine
A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit. – Desiderius Erasmus
A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them. – Frank A. Clark
Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. – Alphonsus Liguori
After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases. – Mickey Mantle
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. – Aristotle
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees –
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
– John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. – Jim Ryun
A bad habit never disappears miraculously. It’s an undo-it-yourself project. – Abigail Van Buren
Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow. – Yiddish Proverb
The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones. – Somerset Maugham
Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed, steady gains in strength, At first it may be but as a spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel. – Tryon Edwards
Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity. – St. Augustine
The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. – Feodor Dostoevski
As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge. – Henry Van Dyke
Enduring habits I hate…. Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables. – Spanish Proverb
Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments. – Marcel Proust
The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change. – Eng’s Principle
Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed? – Marilyn vos Savant
Be in the habit of experimenting with your clothing so that you don’t get stuck for life with a self-image developed over the course of high school. – Marilyn vos Savant
The satisfied, the happy, do not live; they fall asleep in habit, near neighbor to annihilation. – Miguel de Unamuno
Habits are safer than rules; you don’t have to watch them. And you don’t have to keep them, either. They keep you. – Frank Crane
Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. – William James
In any family, measles are less contagious than bad habits. – Mignon McLaughlin
Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them. – Confucius
Habit with him was all the test of truth;
It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth. – George Crabbe
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread each day, and at last we cannot break it. – Horace Mann
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. – Mark Twain
Small habits well pursued betimes
May reach the dignity of crimes.
– Hannah More
To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be. – Miguel de Unamuno
Habit is a man’s sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed. – Goethe
Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all. – Georges Gurdjieff
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become JUST by doing JUST acts, TEMPERATE by doing TEMPERATE acts, BRAVE by doing BRAVE acts. – Aristotle
The best way to break a bad habit is to drop it. – Leo Aikman
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” – Author Unknown
Thanks Joi, I think I’ll have to print that list up for my wall – it’s a really great and broad collection.
It just goes to show that in so many ways it really is our habits that define us and so if we want to change, these seemingly small patterns of action that we call habits, are usually the best place to start (and normally the hardest)!
My favourite quote was by Alphonsus Liguori.
Thanks Joi, keep up the great work!
– dmh