"It's very hard to stop doing things you're used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits."
Old Habits quotes
48 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside old habits — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"What gives value to travel is fear. It is a fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country, we are seized by a vague fear and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. I look upon it more as an occasion for testing."
"Those old habits don't have to be erased, they just become replaced by a new habit that is more in vibrational harmony with who you are and what you want."
"If you've got somebody's aspects in your experience that you don't like, there's only one reason they're there. You keep evoking them with your attention to them. Without knowing about Law of Attraction, you have - through your old habit of observation - achieved vibrational harmony with the parts of them that you do not like, and you keep summoning those parts from them by your constant vibrational offering of them."
"From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him."
"A birthday is a good time to begin a new; throwing away the old habits, as you would old clothes, and never putting them again."
"It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns. Without maitri (metta), renunciation of old habits becomes abusive. This is an important point."
"I too have sworn heedlessly and all the time, I have had this most repulsive and death-dealing habit. I'm telling your graces; from the moment I began to serve God , and saw what evil there is in forswearing oneself, I grew very afraid indeed, and out of fear I applied the brakes to this old, old, habit."
"Reality is ultimately a selective act of perception and interpretation. A shift in our perception and interpretation enables us to break old habits and awaken new possibilities for balance, healing, and transformation."
"Do you know that, until recently, poor people brought children into the world for the sole purpose of making use of them? But how can you change, by force or all of a sudden, an age-old habit? The only way is to plan births, by one means or another."
"Old habits cannot be thrown out the upstairs window. They have to be coaxed downstairs one step at a time."
"Breaking old habits and forming new ones always takes time, but it is worth it in the end."