Habit Quotes

Most popular habit quotes

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. - Samuel Johnson quote.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them apart. - Confucius quote.
Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them apart.

human nature

Habit is stronger than reason. - George Santayana quote.
Habit is stronger than reason.
We are what we repeatedly do. - Aristotle quote.
We are what we repeatedly do.

action

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity. - Augustine of Hippo quote.
Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.
Powerful indeed is the empire of habit. - Publilius Syrus quote.
Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.
We cannot, in a moment, get rid of habits of a lifetime. - Mahatma Gandhi quote.
We cannot, in a moment, get rid of habits of a lifetime.
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. - Samuel Johnson quote.
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
Good habits are as easy to form as bad ones.
Habits are first cobwebs, then cables.

Spanish proverbs proverbs

Comfort comes as a guest, lingers to become a host and stays to enslave us.

comfort

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 quote.
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
A habit is a shirt made of iron.
Habits are like supervisors that you don't notice.
We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure. - Sydney Harris quote.
We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure.
It is easy to assume a habit; but when you try to cast it off, it will take skin and all. - Josh Billings quote.
It is easy to assume a habit; but when you try to cast it off, it will take skin and all.
A habit is something you can do without thinking—which is why most of us have so many of them.

funny

The best way to break a habit is to drop it.

funny

A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it's an undo-it-yourself project. - Abigail Van Buren quote.
A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it's an undo-it-yourself project.

funny

Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

action character fate

Freedom is the right to choose the habits that bind you.

freedom

The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. - Warren Buffett quote.
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
Warren Buffett “Warren Buffett Talks Business,” PBSTV University of North Carolina, 1995
Habit energy is pushing us; it pushes us to do things without our being aware. Sometimes we do something without knowing we're doing it. Even when we don't want to do something, we still do it. Sometimes we say, "I didn't want to do it, but it's stronger than me, it pushed me." So that is a seed, a habit energy, which may have come from many generations in the past. We have inherited a lot. With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents were also very weak in ways similar to us. We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from these ancestral roots. We can smile at our shortcomings, at our habit energy. With awareness, we have a choice; we can act another way. We can end the cycle of suffering right now. - Thích Nhất Hạnh quote.
Habit energy is pushing us; it pushes us to do things without our being aware. Sometimes we do something without knowing we're doing it. Even when we don't want to do something, we still do it. Sometimes we say, "I didn't want to do it, but it's stronger than me, it pushed me." So that is a seed, a habit energy, which may have come from many generations in the past. We have inherited a lot. With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents were also very weak in ways similar to us. We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from these ancestral roots. We can smile at our shortcomings, at our habit energy. With awareness, we have a choice; we can act another way. We can end the cycle of suffering right now.

buddhist

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Will Durant quote.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

excellence

I am not an early riser. The self respect which other men enjoy in rising early, I feel due to me for waking up at all.
The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity. - Marcel Proust quote.
The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.
Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. - Agatha Christie quote.
Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.
It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them. - Benjamin Franklin quote.
It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.
A man of no conversation should smoke. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
A man of no conversation should smoke.
Many who wouldn't dream of having an addiction are addicted to normalcy.
Every habit he's ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert.  Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom. - Margaret Atwood quote.
Every habit he's ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert.  Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom.

addiction

People who appear to be resisting change may simply be the victim of bad habits. Habit, like gravity, never takes a day off.
Paul Gibbons The Science of Successful Organizational Change

change

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. - Henry Adams quote.
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

chaos order life

Habit is a compromise effected between an individual and his environment. - Samuel Beckett quote.
Habit is a compromise effected between an individual and his environment.
Habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love.  Habit puts us on autopilot. - Diane Ackerman quote.
Habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love.  Habit puts us on autopilot.
Habit is the chloroform of love. Habit is the cement that unites long-wedded couples.

marriage

The air is full of our cries.  But habit is a great deadener. - Samuel Beckett quote.
The air is full of our cries.  But habit is a great deadener.
Habit, n.  A shackle for the free. - Ambrose Bierce quote.
Habit, n.  A shackle for the free.
Old habits are strong and jealous.
Habit is persistence in practice. - Octavia Butler quote.
Habit is persistence in practice.
Habit with him was all the test of truth,
"It must be right: I've done it from my youth." - George Crabbe quote.
Habit with him was all the test of truth,
"It must be right: I've done it from my youth."
Habit has a kind of poetry. - Simone de Beauvoir quote.
Habit has a kind of poetry.
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is usually made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky quote.
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is usually made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.
One nail drives out another; habit is overcome by habit. - Erasmus quote.
One nail drives out another; habit is overcome by habit.
'Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them. - Benjamin Franklin quote.
'Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.
Things start as hopes and end up as habits. - Lillian Hellman quote.
Things start as hopes and end up as habits.

hope

Habits are the shorthand of behavior.
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. - William James quote.
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
Habit is a cable.  We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it. - Horace Mann quote.
Habit is a cable.  We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.
Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees—
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. - Ovid quote.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees—
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
Ovid Metamorphoses
Youth is the seed-time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals. - Thomas Paine quote.
Youth is the seed-time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals.

youth

For the ordinary business of life, an ounce of habit is worth a pound of intellect.

intellect

Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness. - Gretchen Rubin quote.
Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness.
But names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit. - Salman Rushdie quote.
But names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

names

To uproot an old habit is sometimes a more painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to wrench out a tooth. - Samuel Smiles quote.
To uproot an old habit is sometimes a more painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to wrench out a tooth.
It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive. - Edith Wharton quote.
It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.
Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. - Virginia Woolf quote.
Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.
Your habits are not you. They are you on autopilot.
Sally Helgesen How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job
Most behavior is habitual. They say the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
Habits are never in a hurry.