Habits

“ Habit runs on the Lines of Nature.--But habit runs on the lines of nature: the cowardly child habitually lies that he may escape blame; the loving child has a hundred endearing habits; the good-natured child has a habit of giving; the selfish child, a habit of keeping. Habit, working thus according to nature, is simply nature in action, growing strong by exercise. ”

“ They talk of the smoking-habit and the swearing-habit and the drinking-habit, but not of the abstention-habit or the moderation-habit or the courage-habit. But the fact is that our virtues are habits as much as our vices. All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional, and intellectual,—systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be. ”

“ That is to say, in a general way, the most ancient and ingrained of the habits which govern the individual's life—those habits that touch his existence as an organism—are the most persistent and imperative. ”

“ What we are less prepared to admit is, that habits which do not appear to be in any sense physical--a flippant habit, a truthful habit, an orderly habit--should also make their mark upon a physical tissue, and that it is to this physical effect the enormous strength of habit is probably due. ”

“ Short-lived Habits.—I love short-lived habits, and regard them as an invaluable means for getting a knowledge of many things and various conditions, to the very bottom of their sweetness and bitterness; my nature is altogether arranged for short-lived habits, even in the needs of its bodily health, and in general, as far as I can see, from the lowest up to the highest matters. ”

“ These traits of a bad habit are precisely the things which are most instructive about all habits and about ourselves. They teach us that all habits are affections, that all have projectile power, and that a predisposition formed by a number of specific acts is an immensely more intimate and fundamental part of ourselves than are vague, general, conscious choices. All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self. ”

“ Parents and Teachers must lay down Lines of Habit.--All this is nothing new; we have always known that 'use is second nature,' and that 'man is a bundle of habits.' It was not the fact, but the application of the fact, and the physiology of habit, that were new and exceedingly valuable ideas to me, and I hope they may be of some use to the reader. ”

“ A BUNDLE OF HABITS.—Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and habit is second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong an opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought, that he said, "All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself." Evil habits must be conquered, or they will conquer us and destroy our peace and happiness. ”

“ Their memories set, their opinions set, their methods of expression set, their delights recur and recur, they convert initiative into mechanical habit day by day. Let them taste any pleasure and each time they taste it they deepen a need. At last their habits become imperative needs. With such a disposition, external circumstances and suggestions, I venture to believe, may make a man either into an habitual church-goer or an habitual drunkard, an habitual toiler or an habitual rake. ”

“ Old habits cling to us as pertinaciously as did those of that ancient war-steed; and often when we flatter ourselves that they have been overcome, temptation appears, and we yield to them as of yore. Do you, my young friends, take heed to adopt only good habits, and adhere to them. ”

“ These habits and this knowledge have become such a part of us that we are not fully conscious of them and of their importance. They are like the clothes we wear or the forms of politeness which we go through with automatically. ”

“ The knowledge you have acquired during long years of study, Habits of study. has called into daily exercise your perseverance, your watchfulness, and self-control. These habits must have excluded a host of follies and vices. In the morning of life, when the blandishments of passion take the reason prisoner, these habits, I persuade myself, have sustained and invigorated your mind, have imparted a freshness and a healthful tone to its enjoyments and fitted it for the more arduous purposes of your work in the world. ”

“ May we not welcome, as at least a step in the right direction, a change in our conventional habits, which may extend, though in ever so small a degree, the region of common thoughts and aims, common hopes and disappointments, common joys and common sorrows? ”

“ Let me discover your intellectual habits, and I understand your type of mind and methods of thought. In short, our lives are largely a daily round of activities dictated by our habits in this line or that. Most of our movements and acts are habitual; we think as we have formed the habit of thinking; we decide as we are in the habit of deciding; we sleep, or eat, or speak as we have grown into the habit of doing these things; we may even say our prayers or perform other religious exercises as matters of habit. ”

“ Habits and manners are the first evidence of character; and so much of weight do we attach to such evidence, that we give credit and confidence to those whom in our calmer moments we know to be unworthy. ”

“ See, then, ye members of the Christian home, to the habits you are forming. Form the habit of "doing all thing’s decently and in order." Let the work and duties of each day be done according to method. ”

“ The habits of mind involved in habits of the eye and hand supply the latter with their significance. Above all, the intellectual element in a habit fixes the relation of the habit to varied and elastic use, and hence to continued growth. ”

“ This fact explains two points in a common notion about habits: their identification with mechanical and external modes of action to the neglect of mental and moral attitudes, and the tendency to give them a bad meaning, an identification with "bad habits." Many a person would feel surprised to have his aptitude in his chosen profession called a habit, and would naturally think of his use of tobacco, liquor, or profane language as typical of the meaning of habit. A habit is to him something which has a hold on him, something not easily thrown off even though judgment condemn it. ”

“ They will develop whether you wish them or not. Already you are "a bundle of habits"; they manifest themselves in two ways—as habits of action and habits of thought. You illustrate the first every time you tie your shoes or sign your name. ”

“ Seize the Very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. ”

“ Can you tie a boy's hands and feet with thread so that he cannot make himself free? How are strong habits made? Is it a good thing that habits are formed in this way? Does this make it easy to form good habits? ”

“ What is necessary is that habits be formed which are more intelligent, more sensitively percipient, more informed with foresight, more aware of what they are about, more direct and sincere, more flexibly responsive than those now current. ”

“ We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is character. ”

“ Speaking in general terms, it may be affirmed that thought makes habit and if sufficiently strong breaks habit. That our habits make or unmake us may be true, but is it not likewise true that our thoughts make or unmake our habits? ”

“ We can form habits—both bodily and mental. As these operate in producing radical changes in human character, we will look for a moment at the process. —Neither perceptions, nor knowledge, are habits; though necessary to forming them. —There are habits of perception, however, and habits of action: the former are passive, the latter active. —Habits of body are produced by external acts, and habits of mind by the exertion of principles ”

“ Every established mental condition is an acquired habit, and it has become such by continuous repetition of thought. Despondency and cheerfulness, anger and calmness, covetousness and generosity—indeed, all states of mind—are habits built up by choice, until they have become automatic. A thought constantly repeated at last becomes a fixed habit of the mind, and from such habits proceeds the life. ”

“ New habits can be launched, I have expressly said, on condition of there being new stimuli and new excitements. Now life abounds in these, and sometimes they are such critical and revolutionary experiences that they change a man's whole scale of values and system of ideas. ”

“ Our discussion should have made it clear that habit is acquired nature, while instinct is inherited nature. Habit is acquired tendency while instinct is inherited tendency. The possibility of acquiring habits is peculiarly a human characteristic. ”

“ A consideration of these characteristics of habits makes clear its dangers as well as its values. The fact that habit is based on actual changes which take place in the nervous system, that its foundation is physical, emphasizes its binding power. ”

“ If we get into the habit of doing our work thoroughly and regularly, according to some definite system, we encourage the habits of contentment, calmness, efficiency, and happiness. If we do our work spasmodically, irregularly, without system, if we gossip between times, we are eternally trying to catch up, so we encourage the habits of procrastination, discontent, inefficiency, fault-finding, and failure. We must be master or victim of our habits. ”

“ III. As conducive to the maintenance of health, we find, first, remarkable regularity of habits, which is largely due to the fixedness, or caste state of society, that keeps people in the same grade of life into which they [Pg 220] are born; that is, in conditions where they have no occasion to change their habits, and where they have little opportunity for seeing any habits, except those to which they conform. ”

“ Many people when they speak or think of habit give the term a very narrow or limited meaning. They have in mind only certain moral or personal tendencies usually spoken of as one's "habits." But in order to understand habit in any thorough and complete way we must,67 as suggested by the preceding paragraph, broaden our concept to include every possible line of physical and mental activity. Habit may be defined as the tendency of the nervous system to repeat any act that has been performed once or many times. ”

“ Give heed to the admonition of the wise man—'Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.'"
The admonition of the text is important in reference to the Habits and Amusements of the youthful. We are all more or less the creatures of habit. Our ways, from earliest infancy, are more the result of the force of habit, than we are generally aware. The actions, words, and thoughts of men, form for themselves certain channels, in which they continually seek to flow, unless turned aside by a strong hand, and a painful effort. ”

“ A habit of a town-life, of country-sports, of solitude, of reading, or of business, where sufficiently varied, are instances of generic habits. It ought to be remarked, that every specific habit hath a mixture of the generic. The habit of one particular sort of food, makes the taste agreeable ”

“ Why certain bright colours should excite pleasure cannot, I presume, be explained, any more than why certain flavours and scents are agreeable; but habit has something to do with the result, for that which is at first unpleasant to our senses, ultimately becomes pleasant, and habits are inherited. ”

“ Even Good Habits Need to Be Modified.—But even in good habits there is danger. Habit is the opposite of attention. Habit relieves attention of unnecessary strain. Every habitual act was at one time, either in the history of the race or of the individual, a voluntary act ”

“ Fourth, it is without question true that in so far as the habits fixed are "school habits" or "Sunday habits," or any other special type of habits, formed only in connection with special situations, to that extent we have no reason to expect moral conduct in the broader life situations. The habits formed are those that will be put into practice, and they are the only ones we are sure of. ”

“ But Habit may be a Lever.--But habit, to be the lever to lift the child, must work contrary to nature, or at any rate, independently of her.
Directly we begin to look out for the working of habit on these lines, examples crowd upon us: there are the children trained in careful habits, who never soil their clothes; those trained in reticent habits, who never speak of what is done at home, and answer indiscreet questions with 'I don't know' ”

“ In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike. ”

“ Plasticity or the power to learn from experience means the formation of habits. Habits give control over the environment, power to utilize it for human purposes. Habits take the form both of habituation, or a general and persistent balance of organic activities with the surroundings, and of active capacities to readjust activity to meet new conditions. ”

“ He has writing habits, spelling habits, reading habits, arithmetic habits. He has political habits, religious habits. He has various social habits, habitual attitudes which he takes toward his fellows. He has moral habits—he is honest and truthful, or he is dishonest and untruthful. He always looks on the bright side, or else on the dark side of events. All these habits and many more, he has. They are structures which he has built. One’s life, then, is the sum of his tendencies, and these tendencies one establishes in early life. ”

“ Voluntary actions may, by constant repetition, become quasi-reflex in character. The intellectual phase is abbreviated away. Habits are once voluntary and deliberated actions becoming mechanical in this way, and slipping out of the sphere of mind. ”