habit

1.

The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly... men don't like it.

- Wilde, Oscar

2.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.

- Camus, Albert

3.

ZANZIBARI, n. An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach between. Greatly to the scandal of this official's family, and against repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most conspicuous part of her person. Unfortunately for the existing _entente cordiale_ between two great nations, she was the Sultana.

- Ambrose Bierce

4.

Property left to a child may soon be lost; but the inheritance of virtue--a good name an unblemished reputation--will abide forever. If those who are toiling for wealth to leave their children, would but take half the pains to secure for them virtuous habits, how much more serviceable would they be. The largest property may be wrested from a child, but virtue will stand by him to the last.

- William Graham Sumner

5.

Nothing is more powerful than custom or habit.

- Ovid

6.

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.

- Sockman, Ralph W.

7.

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

- Twain, Mark

8.

If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.

- Epictetus

9.

Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.

- Guthrie, Woody

10.

It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.

- Isabel Colegate

11.

To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.

- Maltz, Maxwell

12.

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.

- Dyke, Henry Van

13.

Habit with him was all the test of truth, it must be right: I've done it from my youth.

- Crabbe, George

14.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

- Aristotle

15.

Life -- how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.

- Pritchett, V. S.

16.

What torments my soul is its loneliness. The more it expands among friends and the daily habits or pleasures, the more, it seems to me, it flees me and retires into its fortress. The poet who lives in solitude, but who produces much, is the one who enjoys those treasures we bear in our bosom, but which forsake us when we give ourselves to others. When one yields oneself completely to one's soul, it opens itself to one, and then it is that the capricious thing allows one the greatest of good fortunes... that of sympathizing with others, of studying itself, of painting itself constantly in its works.

- Delacroix, Eugene

17.

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

- Havel, Vaclav

18.

Feeling sorry for yourself, and you present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.

- Carnegie, Dale

19.

General jackdaw culture, very little more than a collection of charming miscomprehensions, untargeted enthusiasms, and a general habit of skimming.

- Bolitho, William

20.

Inhabitants of underdeveloped nations and victims of natural disasters are the only people who have ever been happy to see soybeans.

- Fran Leibowitz