31 Quotes About Habits

Spiritual strongholds begin with a thought. One thought becomes a consideration. A consideration develops into an attitude, which leads then to action. Action repeated becomes a habit, and a habit establishes a "power base for the enemy," that is, a stronghold.

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.

If any occupation or association is found to hinder our communion with God or our enjoyment of spiritual things, then it must be abandoned. Anything in my habits or ways which mars happy fellowship with the brethren or robs me of power in service, is to be unsparingly judged and made an end of-- 'burned.' Whatever I cannot do for God's glory must be avoided.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

Experience tells me that people's hearts are seldom changed if they are not changed when young. Seldom indeed are men converted when they are old. Habits have deep roots. Once sin is allowed to settle in your heart, it will not be turned out at your bidding. Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken.

The habit of always putting off an experience until you can afford it, or until the time is right, or until you know how to do it is one of the greatest burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you've made up your mind-jump in.

Habits are the daughters of action, but then they nurse their mother, and produce daughters after her image, but far more beautiful and prosperous.

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

So fixed are our spirits in slothfulness and cold indifference that we seldom overcome so much as one evil habit.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

It is more true to say that our opinions depend upon our lives and habits, than to say that our lives and habits depend on our opinions.

Habits of thought are not less tyrannical than other habits, and a time comes when return is impossible, even to the strongest will.

Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come toward you to be enjoyed, for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel, and glass gems, and counterfeit imagery.

Habit is overcome by habit.

Lord, make me chaste - but not yet. Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

Perhaps you have been ensnared by a sinful habit that you will not abandon, and your guilt is so overwhelming you are ashamed to approach Christ. Whatever the reason for your broken intimacy with God, there is good news. Jesus waits to embrace you now in the arms of unconditional, divine love.

It is human to err, but it is devilish to remain willfully in error.

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

Jesus said, "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33). We must honestly face the question, "Am I willing to give up a certain practice or habit that is keeping me from holiness?" It is at this point of commitment that most of us fail. We prefer to dally with sin, to try to play with it a little without getting too deeply involved.

An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.

A mistaken thought may be corrected easily, but an errant affection is nearly unmanageable.

Manners - the habits of the people - are bred in family and church. Therefore, it isn't an issue of laws but of habits and manners.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind.

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.