The Principles of Psychology

You become what you repeatedly do

Echoes

James writes that we become saints “by so many separate acts and hours of work” and end as “walking bundles of habits”. He credits no one, naming Aristotle only for unrelated points.

1. c. 335 to 322 BCE

   “exactly so, by doing just actions we come to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.”

   Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Earliest we can find, about 2,220 years earlier.

2. 1890

   “Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.”