“Habit enables us to cling to the familiar, to the self we think we know with a persistence almost irresistible. An anodyne for the terror of the unknown, it effectively keeps us from knowing, and is fatal in itself. Habit is a fiction the organism requires to dim perception. It screens us from the world, and from the true world of the self. Habit—no matter how intense the suffering it causes—is the last thing the personality will give up. It is arming itself against danger. The weapons may be more painful to use than the pain they seek to deflect. No matter. Habit allows us to live—by which Proust means it allows us to exist while it simultaneously compels us to miss Life.”
Howard Moss
Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust: A Critical Study of Remembrance of Things Past
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“The problem with living so long is that we get used to it. We watch the mortals age and wither and die around us, watch the world change and decay...but no matter the hardship or the pain or the sorrow we suffer, we choose to continue living. Out of sheer habit, I think.”
Derek Landy
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Jean Cocteau
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English Poet
“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.”
John Dryden
“True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be.”
Ralph W. Sockman