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Habit Quotes

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Habit Quotes

“An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century.”

Source: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Whatever work you undertake, do it seriously, thoroughly and well; never leave it half-done or undone, never feel yourself satisfied unless and until you have given it your very best. Cultivate the habits of discipline and toleration. Surrender not the convictions you hold dear but learn to appreciate the points of view of your opponents.”

“A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest - who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern - who expect to have everything done for them, except what can be made an affair of mere habit and routine - have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches.”

Source: Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy : in Two Volumes

“A man spends the first half of his life learning habits that shorten the other half.”

Men Firsts Half Habit Other Half Life Learning

Author:Ann Landers

“Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.”

Men Humans Matter Human Beings Half Consciousness Regret Ought Habit Conservative Enormous Agents Miserable Habitual Indecision

Author:William James

“half the good intentions of my life have been frustrated by my unfortunate habit of putting things off till to-morrow.”

Has Beens Half Habit Intention Procrastination Frustrated Unfortunate Good Intentions Morrow Putting Things Off

Book:Works of Maria Edgeworth: Popular tales. 1823

Source: Works of Maria Edgeworth: Popular tales. 1823

“... the habit of literature [is] the best defense against believing the half-truths of ideologues and the lies of demagogues.”

Believe Lying Literature Half Habit Defense Half Truth Ideologues

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“It's a useful habit to never believe more than half of what people tell you, and not to concern yourself with the rest. Rather keep your mind free and your path your own.”

People Mind Believe Half Path Habit Concern Mind Free

Author:Halldór Laxness

“I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed.”

Source: The Personal History of David Copperfield ... With Frontispiece by H. K. Browne

“...and was disposed too often to idealize as a virtue that habit of mean subservience to wealth and social position which, after more than half a century of political democracy, is still the characteristic and odious vice of the Englishman.”

Mean Stills Political Social Wealth Half Virtue Democracy Century Position Habit Vices Characteristics Englishmen Half A Century Subservience

Book:Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism

Source: Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism

“If a hundred or a thousand people, all of the same age, of the same constitution and habits, were suddenly seized by the same illness, and one half of them were to place themselves under the care of doctors, such as they are in our time, whilst the other half entrusted themselves to Nature and to their own discretion, I have not the slightest doubt that there would be more cases of death amongst the former, and more cases of recovery among the latter.”

People Ifs Would Be Care Age Half Cases Doubt Habit Thousand Hundred Doctors Constitution Illness Recovery Former Our Time Latter Discretion Other Half One Half

Author:Petrarch

“Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping. Happiness is a habit. Cultivate it.”

Half Habit Horse Arise Pulling Caution Failure In Life

Author:Elbert Hubbard

“Relationships have a nasty habit of reversing themselves; whatever has been done to you in a previous involvement you'll do to the next person you're involved with, if you get half a chance.”

Ifs Persons Has Beens Done Next Chance Half Habit Involved Nasty Involvement

Author:Marianne Faithfull

“I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, rewriting as I go and paring the excess away. This is against all the best advice for writing long form prose, and I have tried over the years to break myself of the habit, but I can't bear to leave anything ungainly on the page and half the fun for me is that tinkering. So the length of a novel was a daunting prospect.”

Thinking Writing Years Long I Can Form Fun Lines Half Break Novel Advice Bears Habit Pages Prose Length Pace Excess Proceeding Best Advice All The Best Rewriting Snail Tinkering

Author:Debra Dean

“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to achieving your dreams.”

“There was an air of indifference about them, a calm produced by the gratification of every passion; and through their manners were suave, one could sense beneath them that special brutality which comes from the habit of breaking down half-hearted resistances that keep one fit and tickle one’s vanity—the handling of blooded horses, the pursuit of loose women.”

Source: Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life