The secret of the whole matter is that a habit is not the mere tendency to repeat a certain act, nor is it established by the mere repetition of the act. Habit is a fixed tendency to react or respond in a certain way to a given stimulus and the formation of habit always involves the two elements, the stimulus and the response or reaction. The indolent lad goes to school not in response to any stimulus in the school itself, but to the pressure of his father's will when that stimulus is absent, the reaction as a matter of course does not occur.
More Quotes from Edward O. Sisson:
A certain bygone philosophywhich certainly must have quite forgotten all about the real childused to speak of the child's nature as a tabula rasa, or 'blank page,' upon which experience and training might write what they pleased. As a matter of fact, the childs nature at birth, like that of a calf or a chick, is pretty well scribbled over by the experience of its ancestors. It is far from being blank, for as soon as the little organism comes into the world, it begins to do certain things and do them with much zeal and determination, as every one knows who knows real children.Edward O. Sisson
Abraham Lincoln tells somewhere that as a boy when he met an obscure or ambiguous sentence in his reading it threw him into a sort of rage. The fact is that this was simply a form of instinct for clear thinking which is found in every child and manifests.
Edward O. Sisson
This sense of honor is the sense of right. It is the soul's instinctive love for the good, the true, the commendable, and its instinctive scorn of the base, mean, and vile. There is a confusion between that false honor which cares only what another thinks.
Edward O. Sisson
The deepest-lying and most pervasive part of character is disposition it accompanies us everywhere, and shows itself in all we do. It is the attitude of the soul toward life, the way in which we accept our situation and our daily experiences. On the inner side it gives color and tone to our own conscious life on the outer side it pervades and modifies our conduct toward others and our reactions to events. A good disposition is indispensable to good character, though of course not all of character without it one cannot hope for perfection even with it one may fail through lack of higher elements. It is a sort of foundation layer.
Edward O. Sisson
NATIVE vigor of impulses and desires conserved by education and experience, the establishment of inner harmony and cooperation among the powers and capacities of the soul, the formation of a life purpose, and the direction of the individual life in accordance with the eternal principles of right that underlie human progress, these are the elements of both strength and righteousness in human character.
Edward O. Sisson
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Based on Topics: Education Quotes, Habit QuotesBased on Keywords: indolent
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