Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Source identified
Man is the keeper of his heart; the watcher of his mind; the solitary sentinel of his citadel of life.
Read & copy the quotation
“Man is the keeper of his heart; the watcher of his mind; the solitary sentinel of his citadel of life.”

James Allen

Download image (JPG)

Source
Out from the Heart
Date
1904
Meaning

Meaning of “Man is the keeper of his heart; the…”

Self-command is pictured as watchfulness: repeated attention to thought matters because neglected patterns can gradually direct conduct without deliberate choice.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Out from the Heart; Allen uses the sentinel image while describing responsibility for guarding and ordering one’s thought.

Primary / edition source ↗

Customize your imageTen designs · Square or portrait · Preview and share
Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

ConsistencyDiscipline Quotes About Habits, Practice & ConsistencyGrowthHabitsMindMindfulnessPersonal GrowthPresent MomentResponsibilitySelf-Control Quotes About Restraint & JudgmentControl
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
The governing of our temper is truly the business of our whole lives.
Read & copy

“The governing of our temper is truly the business of our whole lives.”

Mary Wollstonecraft · Thoughts on the Education of Daughters · 1787
Meaning & context

Emotional self-command is not a childhood lesson completed once; it remains a lifelong practice because new circumstances continually test established habits.

Source details

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “The TEMPER,” printed page 62, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft calls governing the temper the business of the whole life while discussing habits of self-command and conduct; the passage is moral-educational argument rather than clinical emotion-regulation advice.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Character is the interpenetration of habits.
Read & copy

“Character is the interpenetration of habits.”

John Dewey · Human Nature and Conduct · 1922
Meaning & context

Dewey describes character as the interaction of repeated habits rather than a collection of isolated acts, emphasizing how established ways of acting continually reinforce or modify one another.

Source details

Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Part One, Section II, “Habits and Will,” printed page 38, Project Gutenberg #41386. Dewey says character would not exist if habits operated in insulated compartments; “Character is the interpenetration of habits” summarizes his account of habits continuously modifying and reinforcing one another. This is part of Dewey’s historical philosophical / early social-psychological framework, not a modern clinical definition of personality.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Get into the habit of being orderly and neat.
Read & copy

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

Booker T. Washington · Character Building · 1902
Meaning & context

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

Source details

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.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Never leave that till tomorrow, which you can do to-day.
Read & copy

“Never leave that till tomorrow, which you can do to-day.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth · 1758
Voice: Authorial persona / framed maxim · Poor Richard maxim, repeated through Father Abraham
Meaning & context

The maxim turns prompt action into a habit: work that can reasonably be completed now should not be needlessly transferred to an uncertain tomorrow.

Source details

The Way to Wealth; a Poor Richard maxim on delay and useful employment of time.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Generally then if you would make anything a habit, do it.
Read & copy

“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.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
The more the habit of thrift is practised, the easier it becomes.
Read & copy

“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.

↓ Download image (JPG)