Habit Quotes - Page 31

• Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Running, Light, Views

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• You surely can't be trying to blame us for Erak's habit of charging ashore waving an axe and grabbing everything that isn't nailed down? No offence, Svengal." Svengal shrugged. "None taken. It's a pretty accurate description of Erak on a raid, as a matter of fact.

  John Flanagan

  Taken, Trying, Matter

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• Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free. Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. Where words come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection. Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it's way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit. Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action. In to that heaven of freedom, my father, LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Country, Wall, Father

  Rabindranath Tagore (2014). “Gitanjali: Collection of Tagore Poems”, p.39, editionNEXT.com

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• Cultivating the habit of good deeds will not only affect those around us, it will improve our own emotional well being.

  Debbie Macomber

  Kindness, Emotional, Generosity

  Debbie Macomber (2009). “One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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• What is stronger in us — passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?

  Nikolai Gogol

  Passion, Age, Desire

  Nikolai Gogol (1985). “The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol”, p.20, University of Chicago Press

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• The woman frowned. "I probably should have mentioned that annoying habit of letting people come to the wrong conclusions and not correcting them? He got it from me.

  Ilona Andrews

  Should Have, People, Annoying

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• As teenagers, Marcus had been the muscle and Jake the brains. Marcus had beat up the kids who'd made fun of skinny Jake; Jake had convinced teachers not to punish him. Since then, Marcus had grown a brain (kind of) and Jake had developed muscles. But habits die hard.

  Gena Showalter

  Teacher, Fun, Teenager

  Gena Showalter (2012). “Catch a Mate”, p.238, Harlequin

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• I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, People, Tolerance

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people) like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits etc.) can do the journey on their own.

  C. S. Lewis

  Journey, Men, People

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.142, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There was an air of indifference about them, a calm produced by the gratification of every passion; and through their manners were suave, one could sense beneath them that special brutality which comes from the habit of breaking down half-hearted resistances that keep one fit and tickle one’s vanity—the handling of blooded horses, the pursuit of loose women.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Horse, Passion, Vanity

  Gustave Flaubert (1993). “Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life”, Everyman's Library

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• And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.

  Toni Morrison

  Strong, Lying, Maturity

  Toni Morrison (2014). “The Bluest Eye”, p.161, Random House

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• I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud.

  A.M. Homes

  Secret, Littles, Facts

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• But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.

  James A. Baldwin

  Grief, Keys, Punishment

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• I should have warned her about your habit of never doing what you're told." Jace squinted at her. "Are those Isabelle's clothes? They look ridiculous on you." "I could point out that you burned my clothes." -Jace and Clary pg. 63

  Cassandra Clare

  Should Have, Clothes, Looks

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• Lookin' back is a bad habit.

  Charles Portis

  Bad Habits

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• One can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Girl, Littles, Get Over

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “ANNE OF GREEN GABLES - Complete Collection: ALL 14 Books in One Volume (Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Rainbow Valley, The Story Girl, Chronicles of Avonlea and more): Including Letters and Autobiography of Lucy Maud Montgomery”, p.304, e-artnow

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• It is difficult for people of advanced years to start remembering they must die. It is best to form the habit while young.

  Muriel Spark

  Years, People, Remember

  Muriel Spark (2014). “Memento Mori”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

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• If Jacob was right and clothes were costumes and makeup a mask, then our attitudes and habits must be our shields.

  Justina Chen

  Attitude, Makeup, Clothes

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• No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Reading, People, Fiction

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• But I wondered if all this kissing was a bad habit with him and me. The thing we did with our mouths instead of talking.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Kissing, Talking, Mouths

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• We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That's why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder.

  Holly Black

  Liars, Thinking, Trying

  Holly Black (2010). “White Cat”, p.166, Simon and Schuster

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• It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.

  Terry Pratchett

  Atheist, Turtles, Numbers

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “The Colour Of Magic: (Discworld Novel 1)”, p.103, Random House

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• Got to keep losing horses," he said drowsily. "Bad habit.

  John Flanagan

  Horse, Losing, Said

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• Old habits are hard to forget, and old fears are habits.

  Raymond E. Feist

  Old Habits, Forget, Hard

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• When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. Those three words were what everyone used; simple syllables couldn't contain something as rare as what I felt for Sean. I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.

  Jodi Picoult

  Simple, Expectations, Comfort

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.208, Simon and Schuster

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