Thread by @JamesClear

QUOTES ON HABITS AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR

As I was researching and writing Atomic Habits, I discovered many quotes on habits and human behavior. In this thread, I'm going to share some of my favorites.

PART I

Quote on the importance of habits...

"People do not decide their futures,
they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures."
—F.M. Alexander

"For the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits.
For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you."
—Hindu saying

Note: This saying was reportedly a favorite of Steve Jobs, who sent it out to friends on invitations to his 30th birthday party.

"In the shapeliness of a life, habit plays its sovereign role."
—Mary Oliver

"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten;
even so, they have made me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Note: We can say something similar about all habits. We rarely remember them each day, but they shape us all the same.

"Habits gradually change the face of one's life as time changes one's physical face; and one does not know it."
—Virginia Woolf

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
―Annie Dillard

"Men’s natures are alike. It is their habits that carry them far apart."
—Confucius

"Good habits are worth being fanatical about."
―John Irving

PART II

Quotes about how small habits compound over time...

"It's often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things that everyone wants."
—Craig Groeschel

"...great things [can] be produced by long, continued accumulation of very small effects."
—Doris Wallace and Howard Gruber

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."
―Anthony Trollope

"Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest."
—Richard Hamming

"Compounding is mankind’s greatest invention."
—Albert Einstein

"Once one starts to think about [exponential growth], it is hard to think about anything else."
―Robert E. Lucas, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
―Albert Bartlett

"If you do enough small things right, big things can happen."
—John Wooden

PART III

Quotes about the connection between habits and identity...

"Watch your actions; they become habit.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."
—Lao Tzu

"Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act."
—Leonard Cohen

Note: This is something I discuss more in Chapter 2. Our habits are the best method we have to reshape our beliefs and self-image.

"Repeat anything for long enough, and it becomes a part of you."
—Alexander Cortes (@AJA_Cortes)

Like everything related to habits, identity can work for you or against you. Once we adopt a particular belief or identity, it can hold us back from making changes or building new habits:

"The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself."
—Nassim Taleb (@nntaleb)

"Your audacious life goals are fabulous. We’re proud of you for having them. But it’s possible that those goals are designed to distract you from the thing that’s really frightening you—the shift in daily habits that would mean a reinvention of how you see yourself."
—Seth Godin

PART IV

Quotes on the purpose of habits and how they form...

"The brain's] primary function is, ultimately, to predict the future based on current circumstances and past experiences."
―Lisa Feldman Barrett (@LFeldmanBarrett)

Note: I agree strongly with this take and it is one of the core reasons I added the 2nd stage to the Habit Loop.

"Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment."
—Jason Hreha (@jhreha)

"Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under like circumstances."
—William James

"If we define a habit as a decision that has become automatic through repetition, then each habit began its life as a single decision."
―Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea)

"Three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger. When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing."
—BJ Fogg (@bjfogg)

"Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do)."
—Stephen Covey

PART V

Quotes on the importance of getting started with new habits...

"The beginning is the most important part of the work."
―Plato

"The heaviest weight at the gym is the front door."
—Ed Latimore (@EdLatimore)

"A year from now you will wish you had started today."
―Karen Lamb

PART VI

Quotes on repetition, consistency, and getting habits to stick...

"Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again."
—William James

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier—not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is not difficult to wield a sword in one hand; the Way to learn this is to train with two long swords, one in each hand. It will seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first."
—Musashi

"I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning."
―William Faulkner

"It's not a question if we're going to fall off track. It's only a question of how quickly we're going to recover."
—Adam Gilbert (@MyBodyTutor)

PART VII

Finally, some of my favorites that didn't fit into categories or I forgot to include earlier...

"The best way to change long-term behavior is with short-term feedback."
—Seth Godin

"It almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa... Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits."
—Frédéric Bastiat

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little."
―Plutarch

"The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy."
—William James

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice."
—Octavia Butler

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."
—Mark Twain

"Every day of our lives, we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference."
—Mignon McLaughlin

"And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time."
―Nicholas Sparks

"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine."
—John C. Maxwell

"Change is the only constant in life."
—Heraclitus

"Life is growth. You grow or you die."
—Phil Knight

That's it! I learned an incredible amount from these people and I hope you found their ideas useful too.

If you'd like to get my thoughts on habits, check out Atomic Habits:
atomichabits.com