Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

-Adams, Henry Brooks
  The Education of Henry  Adams, ch.16.

Espiar a vida alheia, inquirir dos escravos o que se passava no interior das casas, era naquele tempo coisa ta‹  o comum e enraizada nos costumes, que ainda hoje, depois depassados tantos anos, restam grandes vest|¤gios de" s se belo ha¤  bito. Spying on other people's lives, asking slaves what was goingoninsidetheirhouseswasthenso commonandsuch a part of ourcustomsthat today, after so many years have passed, we have many remnants of such a beautiful habit.

-Almeida, Manuel Anto"  nio de
  Memo¤  rias de um sargento de mil|¤  cias (Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant,1959), ch.3.

   Le mariage doit incessamment combattre un monstre qui de¤ v ore tout: l'habitude. Marriage should always combat the monster that devours everything: habit.

-Balzac, Honore¤   de
  Physiologie du mariage.

We have a habit in this country of correcting things just as they are about to correct themselves.

-Brady, Nicholas F(rederick)
  In the NewYork Times,1 Feb.

Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habit of profound reflection, I am compelled to say, is the most pernicious of all the habits formed by civilized man.

-Constantinus
  Victory, author's note.

Habit with him was all the test of truth, 'It must be right: I've done it from my youth.'

-Crabbe, George
  The Borough, letter 3,'The Vicar', l.138^9.

You're Getting to be a Habit with Me.

-Dubin, Al
  Title of song in Forty-Second Street. Musicby Harry Warren.

We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worryabout the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to do the work.

-Feynman, Richard P(hillips)
  Nobel lecture.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

-Gellhorn, Martha Ellis
  The Face of War, introduction.

The identifying ourselves with the visual image of ourselves has become an instinct; the habit is already old. The picture of me, the me that is seen, is me.

-Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)
  'Art and Morality'.

Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.

-Lombardi,Vince(ntThomas)
Attributed. US  writer.  His  books,  such  as The  Call  of  the Wild  (1903)  and White  Fang  (1907),  reflect  his  experiences  as  a  sailor,  tramp, gold  miner  in  the  Klondike  and  alcoholic.  He  also  wrote  a futuristic political novel The Iron Heel (1907).

You may call it coalition, you may call it the accidental and fortuitous concurrence of atoms†but when gentlemen are in the habit of finding themselves in the same Lobby, it is not unnatural to suppose that they may, under certain circumstances, be ready to unite themselves together for the purpose of forming an Administration and becoming responsible for the opinions that they severally entertain.

-Palmerston, HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount
  Speech on the rumoured Palmerston^Disraeli coalition, 5 Mar.

I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know anything else.

-Rogers,Will
TheAutobiography ofWill Rogers (published1949), ch.1.

The country habit has me by the heart, For he's bewitched for ever who has seen, Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun.

-Sackville-West,Vita (Victoria Mary)
  The Land,'Winter'.

Television has spread the habit of instant reaction and has stimulated the hope of instant results.

-Schlesinger, Arthur M(eier),Jr
  In Newsweek, 6 Jul.

   Those who have the habit of revelation lose the habit of thought.

-Skelton, Robin
A Devious Dictionary.

The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom and education

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.2.

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power stations. I hope that, encouraged now as patriotism, it may remain a habit! But it won't do any good, if it is not universal.

-Tolkien,J(ohn) R(onald) R(euel)
  Letter to ChristopherTolkien, 29 Apr.

   He must have known me had heseen meashe was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognize me by my face.

-Trollope, Anthony
  Autobiography, ch.1.

Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.

-Tuchman, BarbaraW(ertheim)
  Stilwell and theAmerican Experience in China, pt.1, ch.1.