Several Nuns were in their second floor convent one night when a fire broke out. The Nuns took their habits off and tied them together to make a rope to get out of the building via the window.
After they were safely on the ground and out of the building, a news reporter came over to one of the Nuns and said to her, “Weren’t you afraid that the habits could have ripped or broke since they are old?
The Nun Replied, “No, don’t you know old habits are hard to break”.

An elderly teacher, with a pupil by his side, took a walk through a forest. Suddenly he stopped and pointed to four plants close at hand. The first was just beginning to peep above the ground, the second had rooted itself pretty well into the earth, the third was a small shrub, while the fourth was a full-sized tree. The tutor said to his young companion, ‘Pull up the first plant.’ The boy did so eagerly, using only his fingers.
‘Now pull up the second.’ The youth obeyed but found the task more difficult.
‘Do the same with the third,’ he urged. The boy had to use all his strength to uproot it.
‘Now,’ said the instructor, ‘try your hand with the fourth.’ The pupil put his arms around the trunk of the tall tree and couldn’t even shake its leaves. ‘This, my son, is just what happens with our bad habits. When they are young, we can remove them readily; but when they are old, it’s hard to uproot them, though we pray and struggle ever so sincerely.'”
From the Heidelberg Herald.

Habits are first cobwebs, then cables. – Spanish proverb

Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.
Horace Mann

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
Mark Twain

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

Sources Unknown