Quotes and passages on ruts

It takes guts to get
out of the ruts.

Robert Schuller

I hate ruts. Ruts are common, unimaginative, and oh, so boring. I know because I've spent time in them. Actually, I even took up emotional residence in a couple. To make them more comfortable, I even decorated them. I adorned the walls with excuses: "I can't," "I tried," and "I don't wanna." Those are just a few of the plagues, I mean plaques, I hung in my ruts. Patsy Clairmont

Little people with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds. Zig Ziglar

It is a sad and pathetic fact that many people find life a dull, lackluster experience. People get themselves into ruts, which reminds me of a sign an old farmer put up one lovely spring beside a dirt road. "Choose your rut carefully: you will be in it for the next twenty-five miles." A great many people seem to have chosen their rut and have stayed in it for twenty-five years. One of these ruts is routine; the same procedure day in and day out with little or no variation. That ought to be broken at any cost. Norman Vincent Peale

Kids don't have ruts yet that adults have carved into their minds. They're born logical. Crooked thinking has to be taught. James P. Hogan Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts? Swami Sivananda

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when
we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.
For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that
we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching
for different ways or truer answers.

M. Scott Peck

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We are constantly misled by the ease with which our
minds fall into the ruts of one or two experiences.

William Osler

I visited those friends who'd just had a baby, and she was washing
dishes and he was cleaning the house, and I burst with happiness.
And in their minds, they were in this terrible domestic rut.

Josh Lucas

The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.

Ellen Glasgow

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already
made. It requires troublesome work to undertake
the alternation of old beliefs.

John Dewey

The great advantage of being in a rut is that when
one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is.

Arnold Bennett

Boredom arises from routine. Joy, wonder, rapture, arise from
surprise. Routine leads to boredom and if you are bored, you
are boring. And you wonder why people don't want to be with
you! We can choose. We have choice. You can choose how
you want to live your life. You can select joy, freedom, creativity,
surprise, or apathy and boredom.
And you can make that selection right now!

Leo Buscaglia
Living, Loving, and Learning

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is
consistency--and a virtue, and that to climb out of the
rut is inconsistency--and a vice.

Mark Twain

We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost,
but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there
is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us.

Lev Tolstoy

The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of people;
and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty,
then, must be the highways of the world, how deep
the ruts of tradition and conformity!

Henry David Thoreau

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail
into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

Edith Wharton

People find themselves in ruts all the time. You're in a complacent
lifestyle where you work 9 to 5 and then you add a mortgage and kids.
You feel trapped, but guess what, brother? You constructed that life.
If you're OK with it, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you've
got unease, then you've got to make a change.

Jeremy Renner

Seren-dip-ity--the dip of the serene into the common responsibilities
of life. Serendipity occurs when something beautiful breaks into the
monotonous and the mundane. A serendipitous life life marked by
"suprisability" and spontaneity. When we lose our capacity for either,
we settle into life's ruts. We expect little and we're seldom disappointed.

Charles Swindoll

So easy to fall into a rut, isn't it? Why should ruts
be so comfortable and so unpopular?

Ruth Gordon

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I notice that one stray step from the habitual path leads irresistibly into a new direction.

Franz Grillparzer

A surprise brightens dull days and awakens people to the glories of life. Surprise is a creative word. It suggests doing something new, unexpected, different, or dramatic.

Bring home a bouquet of roses for your spouse. Whip up a loved one's favorite dish. Take the kids to the circus. Go camping. Attend the fair. Throw a party. Write a letter to a long-neglected friend. Phone someone long distance. Get out of the rut. Make people happy. Surprise them! . . .

Explore new hobbies. Paint a picture. Write a poem. Break away from old routines. Get up early and add an hour to the fresh end of the day. Walk more instead of always driving. Read something entirely different from what you have been reading. Break the shackles of inertia and get that long-neglected project under way. Surprise yourself and you'll be surprised at the fun you'll have.

Wilferd A. Peterson
The Art of Creative Thinkinng