Michael Shermer Quotes

You can't expect a man to change in one day by watching a film, right?

Habits change into character.

The only proper way to eliminate bad habits is to replace them with good ones.

If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.

Surround yourself with a bunch of like-minded people, and you'll soak up their habits like a starved sponge. Fat people with fat friends care less about their weight.

The question is the propriety of how we go about influencing and changing behavior.

Praise makes good men better and bad men worse.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.

On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

Repeat anything often enough and it will start to become you.

The best way to break a bad habit is to drop it.

You have to actually believe in your capacity to change for habits to permanently change.

The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure to whatever we choose. By changing what we link pain and pleasure to, we will instantly change our behaviors.

Once you break a habit into its components, you can fiddle with the gears.

You can put someone in a new home, but you can't give them a new mindset.

Changing lifestyle habits acquired over many years is often extremely difficult.

Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.

Habit allows us to go from 'before' to 'after,' to make life easier and better. Habit is notorious - and rightly so - for its ability to direct our actions, even against our will; but by mindfully shaping our habits, we can harness the power of mindlessness as a sweeping force for serenity, energy, and growth.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

I've been trying to avoid goal-oriented behavior.

Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either. They keep you.

Animals... don't have a sense of time. You just have to do things over and over with animals until they happen to do it right because they don't really know what you want.

The soaps are great training. You can form good habits - or you can form bad habits. You have to set your goals. If you're not clear on what you want, you can slip into bad habits. It can become a comfortable place, and you don't grow.