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Get into the habit of being orderly and neat.
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“Get into the habit of being orderly and neat.”

Booker T. Washington

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Source
Character Building
Date
1902
Meaning

Meaning of “Get into the habit of being orderly and…”

Order is treated as trainable behavior that reduces avoidable friction and supports reliability in work, study, and shared environments.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Character Building, “Some Great Little Things,” Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington tells students to make order and neatness habitual in crowded rooms, immediately before his advice to work and close doors quietly.

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CalmConsistencyDiscipline Quotes About Habits, Practice & ConsistencyGrowthHabitsInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistencePatiencePeacePersonal GrowthProductivityResponsibilitySelf-Control Quotes About Restraint & JudgmentShortSimplicity
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The more the habit of thrift is practised, the easier it becomes.
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“The more the habit of thrift is practised, the easier it becomes.”

Samuel Smiles · Thrift · 1875
Meaning & context

Repeated practice lowers the effort required for prudent behavior, illustrating how a difficult choice can gradually become an established habit.

Source details

Thrift, Chapter II, “Habits of Thrift,” Project Gutenberg #14418. The sentence completes Smiles’s practical paragraph on forming habits of economy: repeated thrift becomes easier and eventually compensates the self-denial it initially requires.

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Generally then if you would make anything a habit, do it.
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“Generally then if you would make anything a habit, do it.”

Epictetus · Discourses of Epictetus · c. 125 CE
Meaning & context

Repeated behavior trains the corresponding habit, so change depends on practicing the desired action rather than merely endorsing it in theory.

Source details

Discourses of Epictetus, Book II, Chapter XVIII, “How we should struggle against appearances,” George Long translation; 1877 George Bell & Sons witness on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #10661. This collection lightly normalizes Long’s “any thing” to “anything”; this longer record contains the shorter retained habit excerpt represented by a separate legacy quote URL.

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Hard is it to correct a habit already formed.
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“Hard is it to correct a habit already formed.”

Publilius Syrus · The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus · 1856 translation
Meaning & context

Repeated behavior becomes easier to continue and harder to reverse, which makes early choices about habit formation especially consequential.

Source details

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, maxim 11, in Darius Lyman’s 1856 English rendering; maxim order can vary across editions.

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The master-word is Work
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“The master-word is Work”

William Osler · The Master-Word in Medicine · 1903
Meaning & context

Osler makes sustained work the organizing principle of his address to medical students, emphasizing disciplined practice over brilliance without application.

Source details

The Master-Word in Medicine, address delivered October 1, 1903 at the opening of the new buildings of the University of Toronto Medical Faculty; reviewed against the represented 1903 John Murphy pamphlet, Internet Archive identifier b28060805. ‘The master-word is Work’ is Osler’s organizing refrain and is followed by his appeal to write the word on the heart and forehead. This remains historical professional rhetoric rather than an endorsement of unsafe working hours or workaholism.

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If you would make anything a habit, do it.
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“If you would make anything a habit, do it.”

Epictetus · Discourses of Epictetus · c. 125
Meaning & context

Habit formation is reduced to repeated action: the behavior itself is what trains the pattern.

Source details

Discourses of Epictetus, Book II, Chapter XVIII, “How we should struggle against appearances,” George Long translation; 1877 George Bell & Sons witness on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #10661. This short catalog record is an excerpt of Long’s longer clause “Generally then if you would make any thing a habit, do it”; this collection lightly normalizes “any thing” to “anything.”

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