A large part of Christian virtue consists in right habits.
William Paley, p. 295.
Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth—of carefully respecting the property of others — of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as likely think of rushing into the element in which he cannot breathe, as of lying or cheating or stealing.
Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, p. 295.
Centres, or centre-pieces of wood, are put by builders under an arch of stone while it is in the process of construction till the key-stone is put in. Just such is the use Satan makes of pleasures to construct evil habits upon; the pleasure lasts till the habit is fully formed; but that done, the habit may stand eternal. The pleasures are sent for firewood, and the hell begins in this life.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, p. 295.
Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist, but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement; we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which could have no hold upon us if we ascended to a higher atmosphere.
Sir Arthur Helps, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, p. 296.
Habit if not resisted soon becomes necessity.
Augustine of Hippo, p. 296.
Every sinful act is another cord woven into that mighty cable of habit, which binds the spirit to the throne of darkness.
David Thomas (born 1813)|David Thomas, p. 296.
The diminutive chains of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt, till they are too strong to be broken.
Samuel Johnson, p. 296.