Mark Twain Quotes About Habits

• A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

  Mark Twain

  Time, Steps, Window

• Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.

  Mark Twain

  Sky, People, Gold

• You can't break a bad habit by throwing it out the window. You've got to walk it slowly down the stairs.

  Mark Twain

  Window, Habit, Break

• Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. You cannot eliminate habits that no longer serve you. You can only replace them with new habits that support your goals. Moment by moment, you need to live with awareness and structure the habits that you include or exclude in your days.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational Life, Men, Goal

• Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Sarcastic

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 15, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

• We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics.

  Mark Twain

  Love, Sheep, Two

  Mark Twain (1973). “What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings”, p.62, Univ of California Press

• Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

  Mark Twain

  Motivational, Positive, Pain

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.94, Courier Corporation

• You cant reach old age by another man's road, my habits protect my life but they would assassinate you

  Mark Twain

  Men, Age, Habit

  Mark Twain, Milton Meltzer (2002). “Mark Twain Himself: A Pictorial Biography”, p.266, University of Missouri Press

• Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.

  Mark Twain

  Time, Men, Healthy Habits

  Mark Twain (2011). “Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins”, p.79, Modern Library

• I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

  Mark Twain

  Flower, Writing, Mean

• I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.

  Mark Twain

  Sorry, Greatness, Names

  Mark Twain's speech to the Savage Club (June 9, 1899), as quoted in "Mark Twain's Speeches" edited by William Dean Howells (pp. 277-278), 1910.

• The motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar--mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease.

  Mark Twain

  God, Sorry, Lying

  Mark Twain (2016). “Mark Twain in Eruption (Abridged, Annotated)”, p.37, BIG BYTE BOOKS

• We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.

  Mark Twain

  Oysters, Ants, Bees

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.169, Courier Corporation

• A man may have no bad habits and have worse

  Mark Twain

  Men, May, Habit

  Mark Twain (2015). “Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend”, p.83, St. Martin's Press

• Old habits cannot be thrown out the upstairs window. They have to be coaxed downstairs one step at a time.

  Mark Twain

  Old Habits, Steps, Window

• The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit - how it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies - oh, yes, and how soon and how easily our dream-life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, anymore.

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Luxury, Soul

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.3191, Delphi Classics

• There's nobody for me to attack in this matter even with soft and gentle ridicule-and I shouldn't ever think of using a grown up weapon in this kind of a nursery. Above all, I couldn't venture to attack the clergymen whom you mention, for I have their habits and live in the same glass house which they are occupying. I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Reading, Thinking

• I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds.

  Mark Twain

  Broken, Smoking, Months

  Mark Twain, Milton Meltzer (2002). “Mark Twain Himself: A Pictorial Biography”, p.266, University of Missouri Press

You May Also Like:

Charles Dickens

Ernest Hemingway

Oscar Wilde

Edgar Allan Poe

Jack London

Hal Holbrook

William Faulkner