Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Habit

We speak of many things parrot-like,
but never do them;
speaking and not doing has become a habit with us.

—Swami Vivekananda

Image source: Wikimedia Commons 

In this article we'll make a collection of Swami Vivekananda's quotes and comments on habit.

• Do not believe in truths to which you have become attached by habit.^[Source]
• Habit is got through repetitions.^[Source]
• Habit is second nature; it is first nature also. It is all there is of nature. I repeat [something] two or three times; it becomes my nature.^[Source]
• Most of our time is spent in thinking about sense-objects, things which we have seen, or we have heard, which we shall see or shall hear, things which we have eaten, or are eating, or shall eat, places where we have lived, and so on. We think of them or talk of them most of our time. One who wishes to be a Vedantin must give up this habit.^[Source]
• Put God behind everything — man, animal, food, work; make this a habit.^[Source]
• The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits. Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions. Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.^[Source]
• There is no action and interaction of desires in the mind. But when the mind descends from the superconscious state into the world of "I and mine", then by the momentum of previous work or habit, or Samskaras (impressions), the functions of the body go on as before.^[Source]
• There is no such thing as instinct; there is no such thing as nature separate from habit. Habit is one's second nature, and habit is one's first nature too. All that is in your nature is the result of habit, and habit is the result of experience. There cannot be any knowledge but from experience.^[Source]
• We are lions in sheep's clothing of habit, we are hypnotised into weakness by our surroundings.^[Source]
• We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration, through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by its past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives.^[Source] 
• We have got into the habit of thinking that we have bodies and souls and so forth, but really speaking, there is only one.^[Source]
• We gain all our knowledge through experience; that is the only way. What we call experiences are on the plane of consciousness. For illustration: A man plays a tune on a piano, he places each finger on each key consciously. He repeats this process till the movement of the fingers becomes a habit. He then plays a tune without having to pay special attention to each particular key. Similarly, we find in regard to ourselves that our tendencies are the result of past conscious actions.^[Source]
• We speak of many things parrot-like, but never do them; speaking and not doing has become a habit with us.^[Source]
• When a large number of these impressions are left on the mind, they coalesce and become a habit. It is said, "Habit is second nature", it is first nature also, and the whole nature of man; everything that we are is the result of habit. That gives us consolation, because, if it is only habit, we can make and unmake it at any time.^[Source]
• You know the difficulty of giving up a habit of a few years.^[Source]

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This page was last updated on: 18 December 2013, 1:13 pm IST (UTC+5:30 hours)
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