You cannot believe in honor until you have achieved it. Better keep yourself clean and bright: you are the window through which you must see the world.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Habit is a cable.—We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them.
—Frank A. Clark
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Good habits are worth being fanatical about.
—John Irving (b.1942) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
Good habits result from resisting temptation.
—Common Proverb
Certes, they been lye to hounds, for an hound when he cometh by the roses, or by other bushes, though he may nat pisse, yet wole he heve up his leg and make a countenance to pisse.
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English Poet, Philosopher, Diplomat, Bureaucrat
The chains of habit are generally too weak to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Make good habits and they will make you.
—Parks Cousins
Nothing is stronger than habit.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Habit is a great deadener.
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish Novelist, Playwright
Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.
—Vince Lombardi (1913–70) American Football Coach
Habit with its iron sinews, clasps us and leads us day by day.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Man is not imprisoned by habit. Great changes in him can be wrought by crisis—once that crisis can be recognized and understood.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
Small habits well pursued betimes may reach the dignity of crimes.
—Hannah More
How use doth breed a habit in a man! this shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees –
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Trivial things do matter… more people are killed each year by the bite of mosquitoes than are stepped upon by charging elephants.
—Unknown
The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
—George Boardman the Younger (1801–31) American Baptist Minister
There is an invisible garment woven around us from our earliest years; it is made of the way we eat, the way we walk, the way we greet people…
—Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944) French Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
If I feel depressed, I go to work. Work is always an antidote to depression.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Custom may lead a man into many errors, but it justifies none.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor