Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian
As Lessing says, 'Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.'
Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 152.
Book III, Ch. 10
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian
As Lessing says, 'Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.'
Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 152.
African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 57.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
The Architecture of Theories (1891)
Context: The origin of things, considered not as leading to anything, but in itself, contains the idea of First, the end of things that of Second, the process mediating between them that of Third. A philosophy which emphasises the idea of the One, is generally a dualistic philosophy in which the conception of Second receives exaggerated attention: for this One (though of course involving the idea of First) is always the other of a manifold which is not one. The idea of the Many, because variety is arbitrariness and arbitrariness is repudiation of any Secondness, has for its principal component the conception of First. In psychology Feeling is First, Sense of reaction Second, General conception Third, or mediation. In biology, the idea of arbitrary sporting is First, heredity is Second, the process whereby the accidental characters become fixed is Third. Chance is First, Law is Second, the tendency to take habits is Third. Mind is First, Matter is Second, Evolution is Third.
“Habit is stronger than nature.”
Consuetudo natura potentior est.
Quintus Curtius Rufus Roman historian
V, 5, 21.
Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, Book V
David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature
Part 3, Section 16
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 299
“Custom is almost a second nature.”
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Rules for the Preservation of Health, 18
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Nature inclines to ill, through all her range,
And use is second nature, hard to change.”
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
Natura inchina al male, e viene a farsi
L'abito poi difficile a mutarsi.
Canto XXXVI, stanza 1 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)