Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Habit
A civil habit
Oft covers a good man.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Beggar’s Bush. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 210.
Consuetude quasi altera natura effici.
Habit is, as it were, a second nature.
Cicero—De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. V. 25. Tusculanarum Disputationum. II. 17.
Habit with him was all the test of truth;
“It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth.”
Crabbe—The Borough. Letter III.
We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions; we sow our actions, and we reap our habits; we sow our habits, and we reap our characters; we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny.
C. A. Hall.
Clavus clavo pellitur, consuetudo consuetudine vincitur.
A nail is driven out by another nail, habit is overcome by habit.
Erasmus—Diluculum.
A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
Samuel Johnson—Rasselas. Ch. XII.
Habits form character and character is destiny.
Joseph Kaines—Address. Oct. 21, 1883. Our Daily Faults and Failings.
Consuetudo consuetudine vincitur.
Habit is overcome by habit.
Thomas á Kempis. Bk. I. 21.
Small habits, well pursued betimes,
May reach the dignity of crimes.
Hannah More—Florio. Pt. I.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
David Christy Murray.
Nil consuetudine majus.
Nothing is stronger than habit.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. II. 345.
Abeunt studia in mores.
Pursuits become habits.
Ovid—Heroides. XV. 83.
Morem fecerat usus.
Habit had made the custom.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. II. 345.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. Bk. XV. L. 155. Dryden’s trans.
Frangas enim citius quam corrigas quæ in pravum induerunt.
Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.
Quintilian—De Institutione Oratoria. I. 3. 3.
Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Chas. Reade.
Consuetudo natura potentior est.
Habit is stronger than nature.
Quintus Curtius Rufus—De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni. V. 5. 21.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 1.
Vulpem pilum mutare, non mores.
The fox changes his skin but not his habits.
Suetonius—Vespasianus. 16.
Inepta hæc esse, nos quæ facimus sentio;
Verum quid facias? ut homo est, ita morem geras.
I perceive that the things that we do are silly; but what can one do? According to men’s habits and dispositions, so one must yield to them.
Terence—Adelphi. III. 3. 76.
Quam multa injusta ac prava fiunt moribus!
How many unjust and wicked things are done from mere habit.
Terence—Heauton timoroumenos. IV. 7. 11.
In ways and thoughts of weakness and of wrong,
Threads turn to cords, and cords to cables strong.
Isaac Williams—The Baptistry. Image 18.