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Habit Quotes

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Habit Quotes

“As Aristotle said, 'Excellence is a habit.' I would say furthermore that excellence is made constant through the feeling that comes right after one has completed a work which he himself finds undeniably awe-inspiring. He only wants to relax until he's ready to renew such a feeling all over again because to him, all else has become absolutely trivial.”

“Conclusions which are merely verbal cannot bear fruit, only those do which are based on demonstrated fact. For affirmation and talk are deceptive and treacherous. Wherefore one must hold fast to facts in generalizations also, and occupy oneself with facts persistently, if one is to acquire that ready and infallible habit which we call "the art of medicine".”

“The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.”

“Visitors should conform as much as possible to the habits and customs of the house. They should be moderate in their demands for personal attendance. They should not carry their moods into the drawing-room or to the table, and, whether they are bored or not, should be ready to contribute as much as in their power to an atmosphere of pleasure. If the above involves too much self-sacrifice, then an invitation to visit should by no means be accepted.”

“Inspiration can show up almost any time, though I have yet to see anyone scratching out melodic ideas on a restaurant napkin as legend would have us believe. I think inspiration comes from concentration, and early on I learned about Mark Twain's habit of leaving for his study after breakfast and not reappearing until the end of the day, ready to read to his family what he had just written. That set a good example for me, although I didn't copy his habit of taking twelve cigars along.”

“Poetical feelings are a peril to scholarship. There are always poetical people ready to protest that a corrupt line is exquisite. Exquisite to whom? The Romans were foreigners writing for foreigners two millenniums ago; and for people whose gods we find quaint, whose savagery we abominate, whose private habits we don't like to talk about, but whose idea of what is exquisite is, we flatter ourselves, mysteriously identical to ours.”