Page content

Quotations that illustrate how powerful habits are in our lives

Force of habit

• Habits rule!

Ordering

• Order form

  USA version
Orders

  Australian version
Orders

Habit patterns rule!

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. Samuel Johnson

Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night. William James.

The essence of habit is an acquired predisposition to ways or modes of response, not to particular acts except as, under special conditions, these express a way of behaving. Habit means special sensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, predilections and aversions, rather than bare recurrence of specific acts. It means will. John Dewey.

Before you try to change others, remember how hard it is to change yourself. Bill Bluestein

Old habits die hard. Proverb

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. William James.

Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. Unknown

Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last. Chinese Proverb

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity. St Augustine

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. John Dryden

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them. Benjamin Franklin

Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones. Stephen R. Covey

A habit is something you can do without thinking - which is why most of us have so many of them. Frank A. Clark

The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones. Somerset Maugham

The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. Feodor Dostoevski

Habit is second nature, or rather, ten times nature. William James.

Habit is the most imperious of all masters. Goethe.

Consciousness is functionally active in readjustment. In perfectly I adapted' , situations, where adjustments are fluent and stereotyped, it exists in minimal degree. Only where there is hesitation, only where past habit will not run, do we find that the situation awakens explicit thought. Thought is thus incidental to change in experience, to conflict between the old and new. The situation must be reconstructed if activity is to be resumed, and the rejudging of it mentally is the reconstruction's first stage. William James.

Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. William James.

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.

The will that yields the first time with some reluctance does so the second time with less hesitation, and the third time with none at all, until presently the habit is adopted. Henry Giles

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Colton.

I will be a slave to no habit; therefore farewell tobacco. Hosea Ballou

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did; I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times. Mark Twain.

I am your constant companion, I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managed - you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great people; and alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a human. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin - it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, And I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you. WHO AM I? I AM HABIT.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Henry David Thoreau.

As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge. Henry van Dyke.

Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thoughts, and habits can be acquired. An action repeated becomes an attitude realized. Paul Myer.

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything. George Lois.

First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits or they will conquer you. Rob Gilbert.

Genius...means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. William James.

Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life. Too many of us divide and dissipate our energies in debating actions which should be taken for granted. Ralph W. Sockman.

Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy. Henri de Lubac.

Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it. Horace Mann.

Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters. Nathaniel Emmons.

Habit is necessary; 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.

Habit, my friend, is practice long pursued, that at last becomes man himself. Evenus.

The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade. Anthony Trollope.

Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either. They keep you. Frank Crane.

Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment. Montaigne.

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 subject at a time. Charles Dickens.

In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedes all others, is--"I will form good habits and become their slaves." Og Mandino.

It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away. Kenich Ohmae.

It's not what you do once in a while, it's what you do day in and day out that makes the difference. Jenny Craig.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. Thomas Paine.

A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune. Richard Whately.

The more deeply the path is etched, the more it is used, and the more it is used, the more deeply it etched. Jo Coudert.

The oldest habit in the world for resisting change is to complain that unless the remedy to the disease should be universally applied it should not be applied at all. But you must start somewhere. Winston Churchill.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions. Ellen Glasgow.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Marcus Aurelius Antonius.

Sow an act...reap a habit; Sow a habit...reap a character; Sow a character...reap a destiny. George D. Boardman.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Marcus Aurelius.

Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny. Tryon Edwards.

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.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle.

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. John Dryden.

Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. Vince Lombardi.

Chaos often breeds life when order breeds habit. Henry Adams.

The phrases men are accustomed to repeat incessantly, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible. Eric Hoffer.

Habit is the denial of creativity and the negation of freedom; a self-imposed straitjacket of which the wearer is unaware. Arthur Koestler.

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. George Washington.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. Jim Ryun.

Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger and we will make not only our own happiness, but that of the world at large. Mahatma Gandhi.

Happiness is a habit - cultivate it. Elbert Hubbard.

Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits. When habit is formed, consciousness only interferes to spoil our performance. W. R. Inge.

We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life. Bertrand Russell.

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach. Sydney Smith.

Growing old is no more than a bad habit that a busy person has not time to for. Andre Maurois.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. Mortimer Caplan.

Habit is something you can do without thinking, which is why most of us have so many of them. Frank Clark.

It's like magic. When you live by yourself, all your annoying habits are gone! Merrill Markoe.

Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny. Tryon Edwards.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. Frank Outlaw.

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. Agatha Christie.

Good habits result from resisting temptation. Ancient Proverb.

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. Errol Flynn.

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.

Nothing is stronger than habit. Ovid.

How use doth breed a habit in a man! William Shakespeare.

"Habit with him was all the test of truth; 'It must be right, I've done it from my youth.' George Crabbe.

March 11, 2008

Nail biting habits die hard

Once established, habit patterns like nail biting are hard to break.

The typical advice from family and friends to increase awareness, concentrate and self-correct is usually not very effective.

The person may appear to improve when in supportive company but repeatedly falls back to old ways when left to their own devices or placed in stressful situations.

Transfer of learning from such "helpful" encounters to everyday life and work is consequently poor.

Other treatments like medication, bad tasting chemicals, behaviour therapy, plastic teeth guards, hypnosis, willpower or nagging can be unpleasant, expensive or slow to show an effect.

Old habits die hard. There's got to be a better way.

Fortunately, a cognitive science discovery called Old Way New Way^® Learning offers:

1. A new perspective on habit patterns like nail biting.

2. A fast, practical, low-cost and user-friendly method of eradicating nail biting.

3. An effective strategy for unlearning all kinds of other bad habits.