It is the practice...1

Yield once, and a portion of virtue has gone. Resist manfully, and the first decision will give strength for life; repeated, it will become a habit. It is in the outworks of the habits formed in early life that the real strength of the defense must lie; for it has been wisely ordained, that the machinery of moral existence should be carried on principally through the medium of the habits, so as to save the wear and tear of the great principles within. It is good habits, which insinuate themselves into the thousand inconsiderate acts of life, that really constitute by far the greater part of man's moral conduct.

...

Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves, 

And without that the conqueror is nought

But the first slave.

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A penny is a very small matter, yet the comfort of thousands of families depends upon the proper spending and saving of pennies.

Source: Self Help, by Samuel Smiles