William James Quotes

Knowledge helps only when it descends into habits.

Habit hath so vast a prevalence over the human mind that there is scarce anything too strange or too strong to be asserted of it. The story of the miser who, from long accustoming to cheat others, came at last to cheat himself, and with great delight and triumph picked his own pocket of a guinea to convey to his hoard, is not impossible or improbable.

If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.

Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.

Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the great task of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes which are most productive of happiness in life.

I say that habit's but a long practice, friend, and this becomes men's nature in the end.

Then one day, we’ll put the reward in the old place, and put in the rat, and, by golloy, the old habit will rememerge right away. habits never really disappear. They’re encoded into the sturctures of our brain, and that’s a huge advantage for us, because it would be awful if we had to relearn how to drive after every vacation. The problem is that your brain can’t tell the difference between bad and good habits, and so if you have a bad one, it’s always lurking there, waiting for the right cues and rewards.

Every habit makes our hand more witty and our wit less handy.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous.

We build our character from the bricks of habit we pile up day by day.

Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding.

Nothing is stronger than habit.

Small habits well pursued betimes May reach the dignity of crimes.

Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?

Habits begin as offhanded remarks, ideas and images. And then, layer upon layer, through practice, they grow from cobwebs into cables that shackle or strengthen our lives.

Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.

I'm doing a lot of speaking and talking about habits, which is this subject that obsesses me. That's a lot of fun.

In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedeth all others is - I will form good habits and become their slave.

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.

For that which has become habitual, becomes as it were natural.

One study says that 90 percent of our everyday behavior is based on our habits. . . That means how we treat people, how we spend our money, what we watch, what we listen to - 90 percent of the time, we're on autopilot. We do what we've always done.

Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness.

Habit is, to weak minds, a species of moral predestination, from which they have no power to escape.

See what a person is doing every day, day after day, and you'll know who that person is and what he or she is becoming.

Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.