We first make our habits and then our habits make us.
— Charles Nobel
Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.
— Nathaniel Emmons
We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
— Aristotle
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last, we cannot [easily] break it.
— Horace Mann
Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and a habit allowed, steadily gains strength. At first it may be but as a spiders web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.
— Tryon Edwards
Habit, my friend, is practice long pursued, that at last becomes the man himself.
— Evenus
It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.
— Aristotle
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.
— John Dryden
How shall I a habit break?
As you did that habit make.
As you gathered, you must lose;
As you yielded now refuse.
Thread by thread the strands we twist
Till they bind us neck and wrist.
Thread by thread the patient hand
Must untwine till free we stand.
— John Boyle O’Reilly
Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.
— St. Augustine
The great thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. For this, we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous. In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain.
— William James