T. L. Haines and L. W. Yaggy

“ Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard! quick! quick! quick! pull for your lives! pull till the Blood starts from the nostrils, and the veins stand like whip-cords upon the brow!--fasten the socket! Hoist the sail! ah! ah! it is too late! Shrieking, cursing, howling, blaspheming, over they go.
Thousands go over the rapids every year, through the power of habit, crying all the while, “When I find out that is injuring me I will give it up!” Few people form habits of wrong-doing deliberately or willfully ”

“ Vicious habits are so greatest a nap on human nature, said Cicero, and so odious in themselves that every person actuated by right reason but avoid them, though he was sure they would always be concealed both from God and man, and had no future punishment entailed upon them. Vicious habits, once opposed, offer the most vigorous resistance on the first attack. At each successive encounter this resistance grows fainter and fainter, until finally it ceases altogether and the victory is achieved.
Habit is a man's best friend or worst enemy ”

“ Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and have it is second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong and opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought, that he said, “All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself.” ”

“ There is many a poor creature, now crawling through life, miserable himself and the cause of sorrow to others, who might have lifted up his head and prospered, if, instead of merely satisfying himself with resolutions of well-doing, he had actually gone to work and made a good practical beginning. ”

“ Whatever be the cause, says Lord Kmes, it is an established fact, that we are much influenced by custom; it has an effect Upon Our Pleasures, upon our actions, and even upon our thoughts and sentiments. habit makes no figure during the vivacity of youth; in middle age it gains ground; and in old age, governs without control. In that period of life generally speaking, we eat at a certain hour, take exercise at a certain hour, go to rest at a certain hour, all by the direction of habit ”

“ Many promising young men have irretrievably injured themselves by a first false step at the commencement of life; Elders, of much less promising talents, have succeeded simply by beginning well, and going on where. ”