Break a bad habit—drop it
—Anonymous
The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.
—Anthony Trollope (1815–82) English Novelist
The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the spider, trembling at every breeze, may, in the end, prove as links of tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or woe.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
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
Things start as hopes and end up as habits.
—Lillian Hellman (1905–84) American Playwright, Dramatist, Memoirist
The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
You must acquire the habits and skills of managing a small amount of money before you can have a large amount.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing him.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are. You must form, now, a greater and better habit; you must form a conception of yourself as a being of limitless power, and habitually think that you are that being. It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength. At first it may be but as the spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
—Vince Lombardi (1913–70) American Football Coach
Habit is the second nature which destroys the first.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
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
Look at the word responsibility—“response-ability”—the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
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
Habit is a great deadener.
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish Novelist, Playwright
As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.
—Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American Philosopher, Educator
In a majority of things habit is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt.—In religious character it is a grand felicity.
—John Foster Dulles (1888–1959) American Republican Public Official, Lawyer
The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focused on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Habit strips sin of its enormity.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
The beginning of pride and hatred lies in worldly desire, and the strength of your desire if from habit. When an evil tendency becomes confirmed by habit, rage is triggered when anyone restrains you.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–73) Persian Muslim Mystic
Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
I was made a revolutionary in spite of myself… [A]ll creation presupposes as its origin a sort of appetite that is brought on by the foretaste of discovery. This foretaste of the creative art accompanies the intuitive grasp of an unknown entity that will not take definite shape except by the action of a constantly vigilant technique. This appetite that is aroused in me at the mere thought of putting in order musical elements that have attracted my attention is not at all a fortuitous thing like inspiration, but as habitual and periodic, if not constant, as a natural need… The very act of putting my work on paper, of, as we say, kneading the dough, is for me inseperable from the pleasure of creation. So far as I am concerned, I cannot seperate the spiritual effort from the psychological and physical effort; they confront me on the same level and do not present a hierarchy…What concerns us here is not imagination itself, but rather creative imagination: the facultyy that helps us to pass from the level of conception to the level of realization. In the course of my labors I suddenly stumble upon something unexpected. this unexpected element strikes me. I make note of it. At the proper time I put it to profitable use… The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. And the true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note… The least accident holds his interest and guides his operations. If his finger slips, he will notice it; on occasion, he may draw profit from something unforeseen that a momentary lapse reveals to him. One does not contrive an accident: one observes it to draw inspiration therefrom.
—Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian-born American Composer, Musician
I went into a McDonald’s yesterday and said, ‘I’d like some fries.’ The girl at the counter said, ‘Would you like some fries with that?’
—Jay Leno (b.1950) American Comedian, TV Personality
Synergy is everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, the roots commingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated. If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more than the total weight held by each separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Good habits result from resisting temptation.
—Common Proverb
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Habits work more constantly and with greater force than reason, which, when we hare most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
Habits change into character.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them.
—Frank A. Clark
We have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. What he at first chooses, at last compels.
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
An elephant can be tethered by a thread—if he believes he is captive. If we believe we are chained by habit or anxiety, we are in bondage.
—John H. Crowe
Laws are never as effective as habits.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. Do the important things first – because where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically—to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good”.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Achieve success in any area of life by identifying the optimum strategies and repeating them until they become habits.
—Charles J. Givens (1941–98) American Self-Help Writer
Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
To make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy … we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
In every age of well-marked transition, there is the pattern of habitual dumb practice and emotion which is passing and there is oncoming a new complex of habit.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last.
—Chinese Proverb