This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Choose the life that is best, and constant habit will make it pleasant. [Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be; custom will soon render it easy and agreeable.]" - Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
"I still lived in the future--a habit which is the death of happiness." - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt
"It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation, all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"For all our penny-wisdom, for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts; that all men value the few real hours of life; they love to be heard; they love to be caught up in the vision of principles." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement; we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit; which would have no hold upon is if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere." - Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
"As in labor, the more one doth exercise, the more one is enabled to do, strength growing upon work; so, with the use of suffering, men’s minds get the habit of suffering, and all fears and terrors are to them but as a summons to battle, whereof they know beforehand they shall come off victorious." - Philip Sidney, fully Sir Philip Sidney
"Of evils current upon earth, the worst is money. It is money that sacks cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home; warps and seduces native innocence, and breeds a habit of dishonesty." - Sophocles NULL
"Any religion... is for ever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion." - T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot
"It has become a kind of habit to look at things with the intention of getting something. We call it “pragmatism,” and we say that the truth is something that pays. If we meditate in order to get to the truth, it seems we will be well paid. In meditation, we stop, and we look deeply. We stop just to be there, to be with ourselves and with the world. When we are capable of stopping, we begin to see and, if we can see, we understand. Peace and happiness are the fruit of this process. We should master the art of stopping in order to really be with our friend and with the flower." - Thich Nhất Hanh
"Habit is overcome by habit." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"One habit overcomes another." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"For the ordinary business of life an ounce of habit is worth a pound of intellect." - Thomas Brackett Reed, aka Czar Reed
"Habit is the deepest law of human nature." - Thomas Carlyle
"Habit and imitation - there is nothing more perennial in us than these two. They are the source of all working, and all apprenticeship, of all practice, and all learning, in this world." - Thomas Carlyle
"If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny. " - André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog
"Everybody knows that the long continuance of a routine of habit makes us lethargic, while a succession of surprises wonderfully brightens the ideas. Where there is a motion, where history is a-making, there is the focus of mental activity, and it has been said that the arts and sciences reside within the temple of Janus, waking when that is open, but slumbering when it is closed." - C. S. Peirce, fully Charles Sanders Peirce
"The pressure that has been brought to bear upon the native people, since the cessation of armed conflict, in the attempt to force conformity of custom and habit has caused a reaction more destructive than war, and the injury has not only affected the Indian, but has extended to the white population as well. Tyranny, stupidity, and lack of vision have brought about the situation now alluded to as the “Indian Problem.”" - Chief Luther Standing Bear
"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. " - Colin Powell, fully Colin Luther Powell
" Nothing, in truth, has such a tendency to weaken not only the powers of invention, but the intellectual powers in general, as a habit of extensive and various reading without reflection. The activity and force of mind are gradually impaired in consequence of disuse; and, not infrequently, all our principles and opinions come to be lost in the infinite multiplicity and discordancy of our acquired ideas." - Dugald Stewart
"Make it your habit not to be critical about small things. " - Edward Everett Hale
"Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind. " - Frank Lloyd Wright, born Frank Lincoln Wright
"The habit of judging is so nearly incurable, and its cure is such an almost interminable process, that we must concentrate ourselves for a long while on keeping it in check, and this check is to be found in kind interpretations. We must come to esteem very lightly our sharp eye for evil, on which perhaps we once prided ourselves as cleverness. We must look at our talent for analysis of character as a dreadful possibility of huge uncharitableness. We are sure to continue to say clever things, so long as we continue to indulge in this analysis; and clever things are equally sure to be sharp and acid. We must grow to something higher, and something truer, than a quickness in detecting evil. " - Frederick William Faber
"Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure. " - Gary Ryan Blair
"By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled “good” or “bad.” But secondly… I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism… By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. " - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes—to come to this at last. Once, life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed. It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers." - H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
"Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change." - H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
"In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits." - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"Thrift is a habit. A habit is a thing you do unconsciously or automatically, without thought. We are ruled by our habits... The habit of thrift proves your power to rule your own psychic self. You are the captain of your soul. You are able to take care of yourself, and then out of the excess of your strength you produce a surplus." - Harvey A. Blodgett
"Thrift in thought will lead to the habit of writing, and any good man who writes a little every day will become a good writer. We grow by doing. " - Harvey A. Blodgett
"The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts. " - Henry Spencer Moore
"As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge. " - Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke
"Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth--of carefully respecting the property of others--of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as likely think of rushing into the element in which he cannot breathe, as of lying or cheating or stealing." - Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
"Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your own profession. Do not indulge yourselves to judge of things by the first glimpse, or a short and superficial view of them; for this will fill the mind with errors and prejudices, and give it a wrong turn and ill habit of thinking, and make much work for retraction." - Isaac Watts
"Without love, marriage becomes, for man or for woman, a source of gratification, of conflict, of fear and pain. Love comes into being only when the self is absent. Without love, relationship is sorrow, however physically exciting it might be; such relationship breeds contention and frustration, habit and routine. Without love there can be no chastity, and sex becomes an all-consuming problem." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny. " - James Allen
"When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop livin" - James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin
"Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse." - Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
"A possibility of continuing progress is opened up by the fact that in learning one act, methods are developed good for use in other situations. Still more important is the fact that the human being acquires a habit of learning. He learns to learn." - John Dewey
"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 ere free we stand." - John Boyle O'Reilly
"Although it's admirable to be ambitious and hard-working, it's more desirable to be smart-working. The key to becoming a more efficient leader isn't checking off all the items on your to-do list each day. It's in forming the habit of prioritizing your time so that you are accomplishing your most important goals in an efficient manner. " - John C. Maxwell
"The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us. Religion has traditionally been the domain of such fundamental inquiries within a spiritual framework, but mindfulness has little to do with religion, except in the most fundamental meaning of the word, as an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists." - Jon Kabat-Zinn
"Habit is the function of your subconscious mind. There is no greater evidence of the marvelous power of your subconscious than the force and sway habit holds in your life. You are a creature of habit." - Joseph Murphy
"Life never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel. " - Katherine Mansfield, pseudonymn of Kathleen Beauchamp, Mrs. J. M. Murry