Habitual Quotes - Page 6

• And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious group, an otherness that can repel us initially, but which can jerk us out of our habitual selfishness, and give us intonations of that sacred otherness, which is God.

  Karen Armstrong

  Religious, Giving, Selfishness

  "Now" with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org.

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• The nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Political, Chance, Fairs

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2008). “Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation”, Granta Books (UK)

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• To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Art, Exercise

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.416

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• Grace in women has more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations and derives pleasure from all around it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, "in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their face," which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them.

  William Hazlitt

  Character, Eye, Air

  William Hazlitt (1872). “Sketches and Essays: And Winterslow (essays Written There).”, p.365

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• Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Crime, Epitome, Intoxication

  Douglas William Jerrold, Blanchard Jerrold (1859). “Specimens of Douglas Jerrold's wit: together with selections, chiefly from his contributions to journals, intended to illustrate his opinions”, p.41

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• My only solution for the problem of habitual accidents is to stay in bed all day. Even then, there is always the chance that you will fall out.

  Robert Benchley

  Fall, Bed, Chance

  'Safety Second' in 'Chips off the old Benchley' (1949)

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• All the great naturalists have been habitual walkers, for no laboratory, no book, car, train or plane takes the place of honest footwork for this calling, be it amateur's or professional's.

  Donald C. Peattie

  Book, Car, Calling

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• All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover; and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint-Preux standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson.

  James Russell Lowell

  Song, Bird, Crow

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.1661, Delphi Classics

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• Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

  William James

  Regret, Men, Agents

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• I always suggest to women to take time away from the norm. And that takes a lot of courage. Most people can't do that, they can't loose and run, and say, 'Look, I'm going to just have an entirely new environment, devoid of all the habitual concerns of the day.'

  Maya Tiwari

  Running, People, Looks

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Evidence of defendants' lavish lifestyles is often used to provide a motive for fraud. Jurors sometimes wonder why an executive making tens of millions of dollars would cheat to make even more. Evidence of habitual gluttony helps provide the answer.

  Alex Berenson

  Dollars, Answers, Lavish Lifestyle

  "Ideas & Trends: Overcompensating; In Fraud Cases, Guilt Can Be Skin Deep" by Alex Berenson, www.nytimes.com. February 29, 2004.

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• There is no such thing as character other than the habitual action, as Mr. Aristotle told us two thousand years ago.

  David Mamet

  Character, Years, Two

  David Mamet (1991). “On directing film”, Viking Pr

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• Of cases where a man is truthful both in speech and conduct when no considerations of honesty come in, from an habitual sincerity of disposition. Such sincerity may be esteemed a moral excellence; for the lover of truth, who is truthful even when nothing depends on it, will a fortiori be truthful when some interest is at stake, since having all along avoided falsehood for its own sake, he will assuredly avoid it when it is morally base; and this is a disposition that we praise.

  Aristotle

  Honesty, Men, Excellence

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• Unless we believe that God renews creation every day, our prayers grow habitual and tedious.

  Baal Shem Tov

  Prayer, Believe, Creation

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• The mind is a magnet and we attract that with which we identify the self. In order to get the most out of life we must learn consciously to change many of our habitual thought patterns. This is not easy, for our old thought patterns cling to us with great tenacity, but, being thought patterns, they can be reversed. If you are filled with fear, refill yourself with faith, for faith always overcomes fear.

  Ernest Holmes

  Self, Order, Mind

  Ernest Holmes (2007). “The Art of Life”, p.22, Penguin

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• There is nothing more effectual in showing us the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it sympathetically through the ears, as it were, of a skeptic.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Weakness, Ears, Assumption

  Margaret Oliphant (1876). “Phoebe, Junior0: A Last Chronicle of Carlingford : in Two Volumes”, p.40

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• There are some tempers--how shall I describe them--formed either of such impenetrable matter, or wrought up by habitual selfishness to such an utter insensibility of what becomes of the fortunes of their fellow-creatures, as if they were not partakers of the same nature, or had no lot or connection at all with the species.

  Laurence Sterne

  Selfishness, Connections, Matter

  Laurence Sterne (1873). “The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author”, p.26, London : Bickers, H. Sotheran

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• The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.

  Agnes Repplier

  Humor, Essence, Mind

  Agnes Repplier (2015). “Americans and Others”, p.21, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• It is of unspeakable advantage to possess our minds with an habitual good intention, and to aim all our thoughts, words, and actions at some laudable end.

  Joseph Addison

  Mind, Action, Good Intentions

  Joseph Addison (1839). “Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste”, p.76

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• It is believed that physiognomy is only a simple development of the features already marked out by nature. It is my opinion, however, that in addition to this development, the features come insensibly to be formed and assume their shape from the frequent and habitual expression of certain affections of the soul. These affections are marked on the countenance; nothing is more certain than this; and when they turn into habits, they must leave on it durable impressions.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Simple, Expression, Soul

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• Compared with men, it is probable that brutes neither attend to abstract characters, nor have associations by similarity. Their thoughts probably pass from one concrete object to its habitual concrete successor far more uniformly than is the case with us. In other words, their associations of ideas are almost exclusively by contiguity. So far, however, as any brute might think by abstract characters instead of by association of con cretes, he would have to be admitted to be a reasoner in the true human sense. How far this may take place is quite uncertain.

  William James

  Character, Men, Thinking

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• Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.

  Walter Pater

  Law, Mind, Association

  Walter Pater (2011). “The Works of Walter Pater”, p.12, Cambridge University Press

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• I notice well that one stray step from the habitual path leads irresistibly into a new direction. Life moves forward, it never reverses its course.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Life, Time, Moving

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• Hell, I'd even failed with women. Three wives. Nothing really wrong each time. It all got destroyed by petty bickering. Railing about nothing. Getting pissed-off over anything and everything. Day by day, year by year, grinding. Instead of helping each other you just sliced away, picked at this or that. Goading. Endless goading. It became a cheap contest. And once you got into it, it became habitual. You couldn't seem to get out. You almost didn't want to get out. And then you did get out. All the way.

  Charles Bukowski

  Years, Wife, Pissed Off

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• Long as I have lived, and many blasphemers as I have heard and seen, I have never yet heard or witnessed any direct and consciousblasphemy or irreverence; but of indirect and habitual, enough. Where is the man who is guilty of direct and personal insolence to Him that made him?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Long, Irreverence

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.49, e-artnow

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