Chains Of Habit Are Too Light

Buffett has used this saying in speeches over many years, attributing it to others with the phrase "they say." He employed it at Weber State University in 1996 and repeated the idea in various forms in his Chairman's Letters. The phrase itself traces back to the 18th century — Quote Investigator links its conceptual origin to Samuel Johnson's 1748 allegorical tale "The Vision of Theodore" and a later compact formulation by Maria Edgeworth (1806). Buffett applied it specifically to the habits of mind and character that young people form early and find almost impossible to change later.