Second Nature Quotes

Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous. ~ Isaac Asimov

Custom is almost a second nature. ~ Plutarch

I think my response to hearing that alarm would have been to grab an extinguisher and start fighting for my life, but over the past 21 years that instinct has been trained out of me and another set of responses has been trained in, represented by three words: warn, gather, work. "Working the problem" is NASA-speak for descending one decision tree after another, methodically looking for a solution until you run out of oxygen. We practice the "warn, gather, work" protocol for responding to fire alarms so frequently that it doesn't just become second nature; it actually supplants our natural instincts. ~ Chris Hadfield

When I am out and about I feel watched. It's become second nature. The only time I get to be private is in my work. That is when I liberate the ego. The blessed-out sensation of liberating the ego. ~ Thandie Newton

Losing myself is so second nature to me by now that I'm always surprised when it's noticed by others. ~ Amy Wilensky

We are so impressed by scientific clank that we feel we ought not to say that the sunflower turns because it knows where the sun is. It is almost second nature to us to prefer explanations ... with a large vocabulary. We are much more comfortable when we are assured that the sunflower turns because it is heliotropic. The trouble with that kind of talk is that it tempts us to think that we know what the sunflower is up to. But we don't. The sunflower is a mystery, just as every single thing in the universe is. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

The really amazing thing about all this is no matter what you believe,it took some doing to get from a point where there was nothing, to a point where all the right neurons fire and pop so that we can make decisions.
More amazing is how even though that's become second nature, we all still manage to screw it up. ~ Jodi Picoult

I like figuring out where I need to be mentally so that I'm not thinking about the camera and that it's second nature. I want to get to a place where I can exist within the confines of what you can do with filmmaking and not have to think about it. ~ Anna Kendrick

Habit is second nature. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man. ~ Helen Rowland

Obviously, when I learn about something new that I can do in my everyday life that makes a whole lot of sense and can help the environment, I do it. Eventually, it just becomes second nature. If we all begin to learn from one another and share some of the things we do, we just might be able to affect the world for the better through these little rituals. In a curious way, this would be a great wave of awareness: doing the right thing without being told to or having to think why. ~ Jennifer Aniston

Habits are learned. You can cultivate good habits to replace old ones. Keep working on these habits until they become second nature to you. ~ Amanda Hopkins

The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises ... the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment. ~ Buster Keaton

Boldness isn't second nature to everyone, it is intentionality ~ Janna Cachola

As our world shudders like a plane suddenly hitting a flock of geese, we badly need people who will learn that sense, and learn it quickly, not simply or even primarily for their own benefit but because our world, God's world, needs people at the helm in whom courage, good judgment, a cool head, and a proper care for people - and, if possible, faith, hope, and love as well - have become second nature. ~ N. T. Wright

I was so fortunate. My parents lived lives of service. They helped other people, that was their second nature; it came to them so naturally. It wasn't forced. This is their character, and it's a big advantage I have, being raised by people like this, having a secure and stable life, and a lot of love and encouragement. ~ Laura Bush

I have a lot of different stages in my life when training has been easy or hard. Now, it seems that I have been training for so long that it has become almost second nature to me. ~ Oksana Baiul

Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments. ~ Marcel Proust

You must see your goals clearly and specifically before you can set out for them. Hold them in your mind until they become second nature. ~ Les Brown

Custom is second nature. ~ Saint Augustine

Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit. ~ Twyla Tharp

We should not be speaking to, but with. That is second nature to any good teacher. ~ Noam Chomsky

I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature. ~ Dylan Bruce

Nature and education are somewhat similar. The latter transforms man, and in so doing creates a second nature. ~ Democritus

Linc didn't know if it was his imagination, but the streets seemed to have gotten older and dirtier - more so, surely, then was possible in the time that had gone by. What he remembered as the center of where the action was, and where all of life happened had turned into tired and shabby remnants of an age that was running down.

Had the store fronts always been so grubby with their cloudy windows, half hearted displays, the paint around the doors dulled and peeling like the once-high hopes of some forgotten opening day long ago? Had trash always stunk like this, piled in alleys and strewn along the gutters?

Above it all, high-rental buildings that had once thrust proudly toward the sky crumbled silently amid the winds, the rain, and the corrosive fames eating into them. They had degenerated into cheap hotels and apartments while business fled the cities for manicured office parks by the interstates.

But the people no longer stopped to gaze at these buildings, in any case. The figures on the sidewalks hurried on, avoiding each other's eyes, enwrapped in their own isolation.

Even those who stood or walked together aimed words at each other from behind facades that had become so second nature that even they themselves now mistook them for the persons atrophying within.

A city of brooding shells, inhabited by beings who hid inside shells. ~ James P. Hogan

Whatever you've learned becomes truly useful to you only once it has become second nature. ~ Guthrie Govan

We'll be back to our nature documentary, 'Baggy the Anorexic Elephant' in just a second. ~ Colin Mochrie

Trusting your intuition is like learning to ride a bike. Everything takes practice before it becomes second nature. ~ James Van Praagh

Experience tells me that people's hearts are seldom changed if they are not changed when young. Seldom indeed are men converted when they are old. Habits have deep roots. Sin once allowed to nestle in your bosom will not be turned out at your bidding. Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken. ~ J.C. Ryle

Theory may be deliberate, as in a chapter on chemistry, or it may be second nature, as in the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring middle-sized physical objects. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine

You'll understand when you're older. Or anyway not understanding will become second nature, and it won't matter. ~ Gregory Maguire

We are born with a potential for good character - and for the dispositions and habits that make up bad or weak character. Because we are born in ignorance of moral ideals, however, we must be instructed or trained if we are to achieve a good second nature. ~ Edwin J. Delattre

You make a decision whether you just work on the script and believe in every moment and pick out every moment, or if you sit down and memorize lines. Once you really dig into a script, learning lines becomes almost second nature. ~ Adria Arjona

Comedy is second nature for me. ~ Anthony Anderson

Imagination is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature. ~ Immanuel Kant

Road testing the effects of regulation on European business must become second nature to the European Union. ~ John Hutton

Was I still myself? If so, who was I? I wasn't really interested in knowing that. It had no sort of importance for me anymore. Some moorings had broken, some taboos had fallen, and a world of spells and anathemas was springing up from their ruins. What was terrifying about this whole affair was the ease with which I passed from one universe to another without feeling out of place. Such a smooth transition. I had gone to bed a docile, courteous boy, and I'd awakened with an inextinguishable rage lodged in my very flesh. I carried my hatred like a second nature; it was my armor and my shirt of Nessus, my pedestal and my stake; it was all that remained to me in this false, unjust, arid, and cruel life. ~ Yasmina Khadra

That night, the tent that I had been alone in for so long was suddenly heaving with bodies, and piles of rope and kit--with Neil, Geoffrey, and Graham squeezed in beside me.
I tried to drink as much boiled water as I could get down. I knew that I would need to be as hydrated as I could possibly be to tackle what lay ahead. So I drank and I peed. But still my pee was dark brown.
It was almost impossible to hydrate at this altitude.
The ritual of peeing into a water bottle had become second nature to us all, even in the dark, and even with someone's head inches away from the bottle. We each had two bottles: one for pee, one for water. It was worth having a good system to remember which was which.
At 10:00 P.M. I needed to pee--again. I grabbed my bottle, crouched over and filled it. I screwed it shut--or so I thought--then settled back into my bag to try and find some elusive sleep.
Soon I felt the dampness creeping through my clothes.
You have got to be joking. I swore to myself as I scrambled to the crouch position again.
I looked down. The cap was hanging loosely off the pee bottle.
Dark, stinking brown pee had soaked through all my clothes and sleeping bag. I obviously hadn't done it up properly. Brute of a mistake. Maybe an omen for what lay ahead.
On that note I fell asleep. ~ Bear Grylls

And even if she did find them ugly, she would never say so, because flattery had long since become second nature to her ~ Milan Kundera

As you keep practicing, using your intuition will become a habit - almost second nature. ~ Dr. Henry Naikien.Msc.D

Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion. ~ Richard Dawkins

Pressure to me now has become almost part of my life. It doesn't really affect me anymore. People talk about me being under pressure or having pressure of having to come in and be this great player that everyone expects me to be right away. It doesn't really faze me. It's become second nature now. It's almost like it would be weird not to have it. ~ Reggie Bush

Basically we're puppeteers and if you're there and you're in the character, the puppet is going to look good. It's going to breath life and I think once they find out how to trust this system, you just forget about it and just perform, then it's just second nature, it just becomes easy. ~ Andy Serkis

Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now. ~ Dave Navarro

From the moment that Watanabe locked eyes with Louie Zamperini, an officer, a famous Olympian, and a man for whom defiance was second nature, no man obsessed him more. ~ Laura Hillenbrand

You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's
a second nature with me - and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

In Australia, I grew up watching 'The Mickey Mouse Club,' my son grew up watching 'Sesame Street,' my grandson's growing up watching 'Dora The Explorer.' So we are sort of saturated with American culture from the day we're born, and to those of those who do have an ear for it, it's second nature. ~ Jacki Weaver

Habit is second nature, or rather ... ten times nature. ~ William James

Sunset is still my favorite color, and rainbow is second. ~ Mattie Stepanek

It is a revolutionary experience. That's the best way I can describe it. It transforms you completely, in a second. Nature is very wise and gives you nine months to prepare, but in that moment-when you see that face, you are transformed forever. ~ Penelope Cruz

Working efficiently while a movie played was second nature to her by now, more comfortable than silence. ~ John Darnielle

For me, writing something in the spirit of Halloween is like Mother Teresa writing on charity and sacrifice. It's just second nature to me. ~ Danny Elfman

I would much rather watch myself than listen to myself. The moving is second nature, but the listening ... that's the art. ~ Bette Midler

I always have to work hard to find a way to disconnect from the thinking until it becomes second nature to me because that's where you find the best moments. Dancing is like that for me all the time. It makes me feel free. ~ Jennifer Lopez

Here is good news to those to whom enthusiasm does not come naturally: It can be cultivated. At first, you must consciously put your eyes, your voice, your spirit-in a word, yourself-into your appreciation of people and events and things. Do this around your home, at your work, and in your social contacts, and you will be surprised at how quickly it will become second nature. You will find yourself living in a more gracious and enthusiastic world, for your enthusiasm will be reflected back to you from the people to whom you give it. ~ David Dunn

The steps must be second nature to me, so that the music seems to be drawing the steps out of me and I don't look as if I'm struggling to fit the steps to the music. ~ Suzanne Farrell

You should practice these until they are your second nature. ~ Arnold Robbins

You're not a whore. You're a chick who hasn't exactly grown up with every advantage, and you've learned to use what you've got. You don't do it on purpose. It's second nature. You act girly and helpless and make men think you're harmless. ~ Jennifer Echols

Habit is a second nature thta destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. John 1:12

Divine sonship is not something that we gain of ourselves. Only to those who receive Christ as their Saviour is given the power to become sons and daughters of God. The sinner cannot, by any power of his own, rid himself of sin. For the accomplishment of this result, he must look to a higher Power. John exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Christ alone has power to cleanse the heart. He who is seeking for forgiveness and acceptance can say only,--

"Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling."

But the promise of sonship is made to all who "believe on his name." Every one who comes to Jesus in faith will receive pardon.

The religion of Christ transforms the heart. It makes the worldly-minded man heavenly-minded. Under its influence the selfish man becomes unselfish, because this is the character of Christ. The dishonest, scheming man becomes upright, so that it is second nature to him to do to others as he would have others do to him. The profligate is changed from impurity to purity. He forms correct habits; for the gospel of Christ has become to him a savor of life unto life.

God was to be manifest in Christ, "reconciling the world unto himself." Man had become so degraded by sin that it was impossible for him, in himself, to come into harm ~ Ellen G. White

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal

I've been making movies for a long time. The Japanese way of making movies has become second nature to me. To get away from that, I really try to surround myself with younger staff and approach making movies not like a veteran of the industry but always as a beginner and a rookie. ~ Takashi Miike

I'm a pretty wild guy and I live pretty close to nature - I've often lived in caves or on the edge of cliffs or in forests - so it's just second nature for me to tap into the movings of the weather and the world. ~ Dean Potter

So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.
But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin? ~ Patrick Rothfuss

A shrug. "I wanted to make sure you were taken care of, just in case."

She had perhaps a moment, before the valet came. A moment in which to try and relate a truth so deeply ingrained, it came to her lips like second nature. "Dar.. " A breath. "If anything ever happened to you, there wouldn't be enough money in the world to patch the hole it would leave in me. ~ Melissa Good

It's like any time a white friend suggests Korean barbecue. Or when I see a Food Network special where some tattooed white dude with a nineteenth-century-looking beard-and-mustache combo introduces viewers to this kimchi al pastor bánh mì monstrosity he peddles from a food truck that sends out location tweets. It's like when white people tell me how much they love kimchee and bull-go-ghee, and the words just roll off their tongues as if there exists nothing irreconcilable between the two languages.
It's like, don't touch my shit.
It's difficult to articulate because I know it's not rational. But as a bilingual immigrant from Korea, as someone who code-switches between Korean and English daily while running errands or going to the supermarket, not to mention the second-nature combination of the languages that I'll speak with my parents and siblings, switching on and switching off these at times unfeasibly different sounds, dialects, grammatical structures? It's fucking irritating. I don't want to be stingy about who gets to enjoy all these fermented wonders -- I'm glad the stigma around our stinky wares is dissolving away. But when my husband brings me a plate of food he made out of guesswork with a list of ingredients I've curated over the years of my burgeoning adulthood with the implicit help of my mother, my grandmother, and my grandmother's mother who taught me the patience of peeling dozens of garlic cloves in a sitting with bare hands, it puts me in snap-me-pf ~ Sung Yim

Walking is simple and second nature for most of us. It's an everyday kind of activity, not something that's frequently the rage of fashion or touted for its sex appeal. Yet few physical pursuits in this life are ultimately as rewarding. It's a wonderfully satisfying way to spend an hour, and afternoon, a day, or longer. ~ Charlie Cook

Talking up a storm about food is so easy for me, it's second nature. ~ Rocco DiSpirito

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature. ~ Rick Perlstein

Anecdotal tales of combat are meaningless to Americans, we absorb tales of violence like a sponge. Mythological violence is second nature to us. The real thing is not. War begins long before battle. It begins when we are boys longing for the initiation rite of the warrior and everything it promises: sexual prowess and sexual license. War lasts long after the last bullet is fired; into old age and death we go carrying a secret knowledge that no one wants to know about. War is the opposite of sexual prowess. War is desire stripped of humanity. ~ Alfredo Vea

Becoming aware of these habits and understanding the importance of this agreement is the first step. But understanding its importance is not enough. Information or an idea is merely the seed in your mind. What will really make the difference is action. Taking the action over and over again strengthens your will, nurtures the seed, and establishes a solid foundation for the new habit to grow. After many repetitions these new agreements will become second nature, and you will see how the magic of your word transforms you from a black magician into a white magician. A ~ Miguel Ruiz

And moreover, his curiosity and thirst for knowledge were such that he must needs inquire from every one he met the explanation of this, that, and the other; and his own wits were so lively that he was ever ready with an answer himself for any question put to him, so that talkativeness had become, as it were, his second nature. But, ~ Xenophon

I assume my stance, and take back the club, low, slowly; at the top, my eyes fog over, and my joints dip and swirl like barn swallows, I swing. There is a fruitless commotion of dust and rubber at my feet. "Smothered it," I say promptly. After enough lessons the terminology becomes second nature. ~ John Updike

I'm completely at ease on a set. I'm pretty comfortable most places, but hitting the mark and knowing set etiquette and understanding cameras and lenses are second nature. It's a language I've spoken for years. ~ Zoe Bell

Many moral advances have taken the form of a shift in sensibilities that made an action seem more ridiculous than sinful, such as dueling, bullfighting, and jingoistic war. And many effective social critics, such as Swift, Johnson, Voltaire, Twain, Oscar Wilde, Bertrand Russell, Tom Lehrer, and George Carlin have been smart-ass comedians rather than thundering prophets. What in our psychology allows the joke to be mightier than the sword?

Humor works by confronting an audience with an incongruity, which may be resolved by switching to another frame of reference. And in that alternative frame of reference, the butt of the joke occupies a lowly or undignified status. ...

Humor with a political or moral agenda can stealthily challenge a relational model that is second nature to an audience by forcing them to see that it leads to consequences that the rest of their minds recognize as absurd. ...

According to the 18th-century writer Mary Wortley Montagu, 'Satire should, like a polished razor keen / Wound with touch that's scarcely felt or seen.' But satire is seldom polished that keenly, and the butts of a joke may be all too aware of the subversive power of humor. They may react with a rage that is stoked by the intentional insult to a sacred value, the deflation of their dignity, and a realization that laughter indicates common knowledge of both. The lethal riots in 2005 provoked by the editorial cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ( ~ Steven Pinker

Why must we be put down when we try to get away?
Why must we all grow up when we could just play and play?
Good things in life are free, can't buy everything, that's true
Only one thing wrong with that, what it don't buy I don't use "
"A change of speed, a change of style.
A change of scene, with no regrets,
A chance to watch, admire the distance,
Still occupied, though you forget.
Different colours, different shades,
Over each mistakes were made.
I took the blame."
"It's just second nature,
It's what we've been shown,
We're living by your rules ~ Ian Thomas Curtis

One more impression I gathered from that work of my boyhood, an impression which I did not formulate till afterward, and which will probably astonish many a reader. It is the spirit of equality which is highly developed in the Russian peasant, and in fact in the rural population everywhere. The Russian peasant is capable of much servile obedience to the landlord and the police officer; he will bend before their will in a servile manner; but he does not consider them superior men, and if the next moment that same landlord or officer talks to the same peasant about hay or ducks, the latter will reply to him as an equal to an equal. I never saw in a Russian peasant that servility, grown to be a second nature, with which a small functionary talks to one of high rank, or a valet to his master. The peasant too easily submits to force, but he does not worship it. ~ Pyotr Kropotkin

It is strange that what seems at first alien becomes second nature in the blink of an eye. ~ Sara Sheridan

When I draw it feels very natural - intuitive. I don't think about it, I just do it. My visual vocabulary is self-selecting and second nature to me. Writing is harder for me. It's something I struggle with. Drawing always comes first. ~ Arthur Jones

Habit is the second nature which destroys the first. ~ Blaise Pascal

We can never achieve and succeed without first making excellence second nature. ~ Jolene Church

If for some women flirting is second nature, insignificant, routine, for Tereza it had developed into an important field of research with the goal of teaching her who she was and what she was capable of. But by making it important and serious, she deprived it of its lightness, and it became forced, labored, overdone. She disturbed the balance between promise and lack of guarantee (which, when maintained, is a sign of flirtistic virtue); she promised too ardently, and without making it clear that the promise involved no guarantee on her part. Which is another way of saying that she gave everyone the impression of being there for the taking. But when men responded by asking for what they felt they had been promised, they met with strong resistance, and their only explanation for it was that she was deceitful and malicious. ~ Milan Kundera

I don't go home and pretend I'm August rather than just the actual lines I'm saying in the film. If you do it that way, it makes it more natural and second nature. After awhile you get used to it and there's so much, especially being in New York to film; you're always surrounded by American people. ~ Freddie Highmore

Make the second effort your second nature. ~ Harvey MacKay

I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process. ~ Candace Bushnell

I've always felt I had to prove myself, and now it has become second nature. When I first went to university, I took lodgings with a woman who said, 'What are the chances of you staining my pans?' I said, 'I don't think I understand the question ... ' and she said, 'When you cook your curries.' ~ Sanjeev Bhaskar

Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful. ~ Michel De Montaigne

It is sad and wrong to be so dependent for the life of my life on any human being as I am on you; but I cannot by any force of logic cure myself at this date, when it has become second nature. ~ Jane Welsh Carlyle

What really has expanded is not so much a circle of empathy as a circle of rights - a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation. Empathy has surely been historically important in setting off epiphanies of concern for members of overlooked groups. But the epiphanies are not enough. For empathy to matter, it must goad changes in policies and norms that determine how the people in those groups are treated. At these critical moments, a newfound sensitivity to the human costs of a practice may tip the decisions of elites and the conventional wisdom of the masses. But as we shall see in the section on reason, abstract moral argumentation is also necessary to overcome the built-in strictures on empathy. The ultimate goal should be policies and norms that become second nature ~ Steven Pinker

The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members of Parliament generally. ~ Anthony Trollope

Practice the mechanics of making photographs until it becomes second nature. ~ Fred Picker

My youngest son becomes an award-winning nature photographer, and I cannot resist writing poems to his pictures. My daughter loves to cook, though I do not. Yet together, we write a cookbook with fairy tales. And now a second. ~ Jane Yolen

The art of hiding in plain sight used to be second nature, and now it has become the whole of him ~ Helen Dunmore

It has to become second nature, for a programmer, to notice when a concept is begging to be abstracted into a new word. ~ Marijn Haverbeke

Experience shows that what great role pratice and experience play in education; pratice, the prolonged exercice lead to habit: exemple suggests imitation. Habit can become a second nature, but, wrongly directed (or guided), it may also heighten (or intensify) unfortunate tendencies and be an obstacle to progress. ~ African Spir

It was altogether a different story now. Abhilasha started coming out of the cold aloofness which had become her second nature, while for Arvind, it was like 'fiddle found a melody'. He was in love with his life again. With their growing intimacy, came the desire to meet each other. And at last it materialised when they fixed a date for meeting. The long awaited day came. A sleepless night of nervous apprehension, culminated at dawn, as Abhilasha could no longer lie down. While there was much excitement at the prospect of meeting him but the possibility of a probable mismatch between the real Arvind and the virtual one, loomed large on her mind, making her feel nervous. ~ Chitralekha Paul

Perhaps this need to lie cost me something at first: but I soon realized that what are supposedly the worst things (lying, to mention only one) are hard to do only when you have never done them; but that each of them becomes, and so quickly! easy, pleasant, sweet in the repetition, and soon a second nature. Thus, as in each instance when an initial disgust is overcome, I ended by enjoying the dissimulation itself, savoring it as I savored the functioning of my unsuspected faculties. And I advanced every day into a richer, fuller life, toward a more delicious happiness. ~ Andre Gide

Once sin is allowed to settle in your heart, it will not be turned out at your bidding. Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken. The prophet has well said, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). Habits are like stones rolling down hill--the further they roll, the faster and more ungovernable is their course. Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A boy may bend an oak when it is a sapling--a hundred men cannot root it up, when it is a full grown tree. A child can wade over the Thames River at its fountain-head--the largest ship in the world can float in it when it gets near the sea. So it is with habits: the older the stronger--the longer they have held possession, the harder they will be to cast out. ~ J.C. Ryle

For me, travelling and drawing the world, experiencing as much as possible first hand, has been very important. Making notes, drawing and writing on the move, became second nature. ~ Michael Foreman

From the perspective of the radicals, the habitus basis of human existence is, as a whole, no more than a spiritually worthless puppet theatre into which a free ego-soul must be implanted after the fact, and through the greatest effort. If this fails, one experiences an effect in most people that is familiar from many athletes and models: they make a promising visual impression - but if one knocks, no one is at home. According to these doctrines, the adept can only rid themselves of their baggage by subjecting their life to a rigorous practice regime by which they can de-automize their behaviour in all important dimensions. At the same time, they must re-automatize their newly acquired behaviour so that what they want to be or represent becomes second nature. ~ Peter Sloterdijk