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1 " Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn’t draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn’t do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life. "
― Sam Harris , Free Will
2 " Once you accept your circumstances and decide to take action, you can welcome change. Change is an opportunity to form new habits and become who you are meant to be. "
― Farshad Asl , The "No Excuses" Mindset: A Life of Purpose, Passion, and Clarity
3 " Fixate on whole cultures, not specific pieces of poverty. No specific intervention is going to turn around the life of a child or an adult in any consistent way, but if you can surround a person with a new culture, and different web of relationships, then they will absorb new habits of thought and behavior in ways you will never be able to measure or understand. And if you do surround that person with a new, enriching culture, then you had better keep surrounding them with it, because if they slip back into a different culture, and most of the gains will fade away. "
4 " Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does:otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that the character peaks a little later;between twenty and thirty, say. And after that we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also if this isn't too grand a word--our tragedy. "
― Julian Barnes , The Sense of an Ending
5 " Of course, there were innumerable conversions during these years, as Christianity became the religion of Western Europe and Christendom took its characteristic shape. Many of these were undramatic – serfs responding to the importunity of their lords – or group events, as in the conversion of Clovis’s troops. But for many others there was no longer need of conversion. The contours of Christian experience had shifted. Whereas up to the time of Augustine there had been four stages of initiation and incorporation into the church, there were no typically two. The first stage was brief and obligatory – baptism in the days or months after birth. The second stage would happen later and would take longer – if it took place at all – when confirmation happened and when parents instructed their children and godparents instructed their godchildren in the beliefs and behavior of the Christian church. Indeed, at this time of the rapid spread of Christianity into new territories, it was vitally necessary that the baptizands be taught well. The heroic and valorous values of the folk, the glorious narratives of warriors, the adulation of wealth and strength – all of these were as firmly in place in seventh-century Gaul as the pagan values and narratives had been in third-century Rome. If Christianity were to be a religion of revelation that could challenge the commonplaces of Gallic society, if new habits were to be taught and new role models were to be adopted, there would have to be some form of postbaptismal pastoral follow-up. "
― , The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom
6 " There are new habits you can adopt starting NOW that make you approachable and encourage other people to engage with you. "
― Susan C. Young , The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3)
7 " To learn new habits is everything for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits. "