I am sure that the sad days and happenings were rare and that I lived the joyous and careless life of other children but just because the happy days were so habitual to me they made no impression upon my mind and I can no longer recall them.

Genius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace it may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without while the inhabitant sits in darkness.

The habit of religion is oppressive an easy way out of thought.

Your real self - the 'I am I' - is master of this land the ruler of this empire. You rightfully have power and dominion over it all its inhabitants and all contained in its realm.

Our enemies are our evil deeds and their memories our pride our selfishness our malice our passions which by conscience or by habit pursue us with a relentlessness past the power of figure to express.

It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors even to our animal neighbors the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

In the power of fixing the attention lies the most precious of the intellectual habits.

Each season I find myself constantly inspired by 'The Biggest Loser' contestants. Their tenacity and willingness to learn new healthy habits is tremendous and the results speak for themselves. I am honored to be part of such an inspiring program that helps inspire positive change in so many lives.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of.

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

It is to be observed that every case of war averted is a gain in general for it helps to form a habit of peace and community habits long continued become standards of conduct.

Character... is a habit the daily choice of right over wrong it is a moral quality which grows to maturity in peace and is not suddenly developed on the outbreak of war.

Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued we would need no zoos at all.

It is unfair to blame man too fiercely for being pugnacious he learned the habit from Nature.

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

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits by which we are nurtured and live.

Virtue is a habit of the mind consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

Habit is a second nature that 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.

I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.

The moral virtues then are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature indeed prepares in us the ground for their reception but their complete formation is the product of habit.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance nature compulsions habit reason passion desire.

We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans' musicians. It is called the Musicians' Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.