Quotes
Quotes about Habit
Clo. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?
Mal. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems.
What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on 't?
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life,
Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate and full of life
Into the eye and prospect of his soul.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,--
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
Look round the habitable world: how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
A Rechabite poor Will must live,
And drink of Adam's ale.
So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
Small habits well pursued betimes
May reach the dignity of crimes.
When true hearts lie wither'd
And fond ones are flown,
Oh, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
A town that boasts inhabitants like me
Can have no lack of good society.
I am not a politician, and my other habits are good.
How full and rich a world
Theirs to inhabit is--
Sweet scent of grass and bloom,
Playmates' glad symphony,
Cool touch of western wind,
Sunshine's divine caress.
How should they know or feel
They are in darkness?
But, oh, the miracle!
If a Redeemer came,
Laid finger on their eyes--
One touch and what a world,
New-born in loveliness!
What a dark world--who knows?--
Ours to inhabit is!
One touch and what a strange
Glory might burst on us,
What a hid universe!
Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.
Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions,--as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running.
Whatever you would make habitual, practise it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practise it, but habituate yourself to something else.
