On Habits
Og Mandino, “sales guru” and the author of the bestselling book The Greatest Salesman in the World
“Good habits are the key to all success.”
Samuel Johnson, 18th century British poet, essayist, and literary critic:
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
Dr. Frank Crane, Presbyterian minister, speaker, and columnist:
Habits are safer than rules; you don’t have to watch them. And you don’t have to keep them, either. They keep you.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian writer and existentialist philosopher:
“The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.”
Confucius, 5th century Chinese teacher and social philosopher:
“Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.”
Georges Gurdjieff, Greek-Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher of sacred dance:
“Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all.”
Unknown:
“A habit is something you can do without thinking - which is why most of us have so many of them.”
Jim Ryun, American politician and former track athlete:
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
“Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow.”
Aristotle, seminal Greek naturalist and rationalist and father of Western philosophy. (Sidenote: I studied Aristotle extensively during my undergrad, and completed papers on Aristotle’s mathematics [pdf] and concept of justice.)
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
And yes I agree with you. We all have bad habits. Funny thing is though we don’t necessarily know how to break them or better still want to break them. Great blog.
Thanks, Terry… I think many of us tend to worry so much about our bad habits that we forget to spend our time and energy focusing on installing positive habits.