Quotes & Sayings About Abstaining

Freedom from activity is never achieved by abstaining from action. Nobody can become perfect by merely ceasing to act. In fact, nobody can ever rest from his activity even for a moment. All are helplessly forced to act ...
A man who renounces certain physical actions but still lets his mind dwell on the objects of his sensual desire, is deceiving himself. He can only be called a hypocrite. The truly admirable man controls his senses by the power of his will. All his actions will be disinterested.
Activity is better than inertia. Act, but with self-control. If you are lazy, you cannot even sustain your own body. — Anonymous

We will train both mind and body when we accustom ourselves to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, scarcity of food, hardness of bed, abstaining from pleasures, and enduring pains — Anonymous

Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth
of carefully respecting the property of others
of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as likely think of rushing into the element in which he cannot breathe, as of lying or cheating or stealing. — Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham And Vaux

This is not what anyone wants to hear, just like somebody who wants to lose weight doesn't want to hear 'diet and exercise,' but I think giving yourself time and abstaining from interaction is the only way to get over somebody. — Julie Klausner

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it. — George Bernard Shaw

I bet you're a real heartbreaker," he said, giving me a nearly irresistible smile.
"I've never broken a single heart," I admitted. "I've broken more than a few noses and stomped on several ball sacks though."
Vaughn's grin widened. "Let me buy you a drink."
"I have a drink."
"Fine. Let me take you to a booth and sweet talk your sexy ass into my bed tonight."
"I'm abstaining from fucking guys like you."
"Guys like me? You mean, sexy bastards that'll make you scream their names?"
"Yeah, basically. — Bijou Hunter

The age-old, seemingly inexorable process whereby diseases acquire meanings (by coming to stand for the deepest fears) and inflict stigma is always worth challenging, and it does seem to have more limited credibility in the modern world, among people willing to be modern - the process is under surveillance now. With this illness, one that elicits so much guilt and shame, the effort to detach it from these meanings, these metaphors, seems particularly liberating, even consoling. But the metaphors cannot be distanced just by abstaining from them. They have to be exposed, criticized, belabored, used up. — Susan Sontag

Abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying the spontaneity of his nature. — Lao-Tzu

At times life orchestrates a very efficent, yet rather painful, modality to allow us to release grievances and judgements towards some people. It consists in slowly setting the stage for us to be in the same circumstances, which eventually lead us to behave exactly like those people.
Each time we express hard judgments regarding what is wrong with others, a complex and long series of events is activated till we reach the moment when we can see our own finger pointing against us.
There is also another way, the most efficent and painless, which does not require any complexity and long orchestration, for it simply takes place in the present. It consists in abstaining right from the beginning from any judgement towards others. — Franco Santoro

And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? — Plato

Though there are very serious disadvantages about being a true believer. Who would want four wives at any time, especially when one pays for the doubtful privilege by abstaining from wine? — C.S. Forester

Abstaining so as really to enjoy, is the epicurism, the very perfection, of reason. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Virtue is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence, or abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of our faculties in doing good. — Joseph Butler

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. — Herman Wouk

If there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. — Plato

I'm abstaining from romance and the discussion of romance. — Lauren Mayberry

Make no choice, and you have chosen. Failure to decide, because you lack the right, is itself a decision, First Councilor. In abstaining, you vote. — George R R Martin

Getting in control of a eating addiction isn't like kicking smoking or drugs or alcohol. Those are addictions that you give up completely, and once you get through the withdrawal you win the war by abstaining. Your battle is so tricky. You're always going to need food. You're going to have to get to a point where you coexist with it and it's not the crutch you fall back on. — Stephanie Evanovich

An artist needs knowledge and the power of observation only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that his abstention will not appear artificial or false. — Andrei Tarkovsky

I had come in stages to a different belief about how one should be in this life. I now felt convinced that the greater part of a man's duty consists in abstaining from much that he is in the habit of consuming. — Geraldine Brooks

The only kind of appeal that wins any instinctive response in party politics is an appeal to hostile feeling; the men who perceive the need of cooperation are powerless. Until education has been directed for a generation into new channels, and the Press has abandoned incitements to hatred, only harmful policies have any chance of being adopted in practice by our present political methods. But there is no obvious means of altering education and the Press until our political system is altered. From this dilemma there is no issue by means of ordinary action, at any rate for a long time to come. The best that can be hoped, it seems to me, is that we should, as many of us as possible, become political skeptics, rigidly abstaining from belief in the various attractive party programmes that are put before us from time to time. — Bertrand Russell

There are many eyes that can detect and honor the prudent and household virtues; there are many that can discern Genius on his starry track, though the mob is incapable; but when that love which is all-suffering, all-abstaining, all-aspiring, which has vowed to itself, that it will be a wretch and also a fool in this world, sooner than soil its white hands by any compliances, comes into our streets and houses,
only the pure and aspiring can know its face, and the only compliment they can pay it, is to own it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Abstaining is favorable both to the head and the pocket. — W.C. Fields

Science has long been in the values business. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, scientific validity is not the result of scientists abstaining from making value judgments; rather, scientific validity is the result of scientists making their best effort to value priinciples of reasoning that link their beliefs to reality, through reliable chains of evidence and argument. — Sam Harris

It was palpable, all that wanting: Mother wanting something more, Dad wanting something more, everyone wanting something more. This wasn't going to do for us fifties girls; we were going to have to change the equation even if it meant ... abstaining from motherhood, because clearly that was where Mother got caught. — Anne Taylor Fleming

Invites us to jump off the hamster wheel of consumption and experience the pinch of abstaining from thoughtless indulgence. — Anonymous

Solitude The creation of an open, empty space in our lives by purposefully abstaining from interaction with other human beings, so that, freed from competing loyalties, we can be found by God The — Richard J. Foster

Paraphrased: The way of al-Junayd includes among other things abstaining constantly from resisting God Most High in whatever happens to one, whether good or bad ... — Ibn Ata Allah

Ethan: "Abstaining definitely doesn't work."
Beth: "what do you suggest?"
Ethan: "We're obviously going to have to make love often, but keep the encounters from getting too intense." He sounded perfectly serious, like he really believed what he was saying. — Lucy Monroe

Christianity, said Erasmus, has been made to consist not in loving one's neighbor but in abstaining from butter and cheese during Lent. — Roland H. Bainton

I'm the worst ad anyone could possibly be for abstaining from anything. — Matt Roper

Why am I impatient I am unsure for what is patience? And why should I ultimately feel that I am lacking in it.
Is it timing? Waiting?
Abstaining?
Obligation?
Longing?
Torture?
Perseverance?
Discipline?
Wanting?
Someone recently referred to it as a staring contest between yourself, fate, god and chance. He also referred to it as a tease, a flirt. It's staring at her image when you want to hear her voice, feel her breath, taste her skin. Patience is the recovery from a really hot dream interrupted by the damn alarm clock. Patience is a hard cock with bound hands. — LEONORA MORRISON

We think of prices as simply the notation of how much we must pay for things. But the price system accomplishes far more than that. Hundreds of millions of people buying and selling, and abstaining from buying and selling, generate a system of signals - prices to producers and consumers about relative scarcities and demand. Through this system, consumers can convey to producers their subjective priorities and entrepreneurs can invest accordingly. — Sheldon Richman

To be initiated into Belief is neither done through abstaining from certain types of tangible substances (e.g., Alcohol) nor through abiding with certain dress codes (e.g., Head Cover), it is something only the baby completely -yet intrinsically- understands. A Truth that repelled Pharaoh into the dustbin of history and his Jew subjects into the fringes of mankind. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

Temperance referred not abstaining, but going the right length and no further ... of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink, either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he wants to give the money to the poor, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying. — C.S. Lewis

Abstaining from sex, hitting the books, and wearing loose-fitting clothes are common ways that girls try to molt their "slutty" image. But more often their shame leads them to self-destructive behavior. They become willing to do things that they wouldn't have dreamed of doing before they were scandalized because they now feel they have so little to offer. Some girls do drugs or drink to excess in an attempt to blot away their stigma. Others become depressed and anorexic. And others think so little of themselves that they date boys who insult or beat them. — Leora Tanenbaum

Politics is the force that channels social, cultural, and economic powers and makes them imminent in our lives. Abstaining from politics is like turning your back on a beast when it is angry and intent on ripping your guts out. — John Ralston Saul

One will starve to death with just as much certainty and much more speedily, if one attempts to live upon foods containing only one or two elements of nutrition, as if one were totally abstaining from food. A diet of white flour and water, or white sugar and water, will result in death much sooner than a diet of water only. If no food is eaten the body feeds upon its own food reserves, but it has no provision for meeting the exigencies created by prolonged subsistence on one-sided diets. — Herbert M. Shelton

Logic was, formerly, the art of drawing inferences; it has now become the art of abstaining from inferences, since it has appeared that the inferences we feel naturally inclined to make are hardly ever valid. — Bertrand Russell

Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,
that they shall hear worse orators than themselves. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals. — Theodor Adorno

Jesus isn't coming for a church that's gritting her teeth, struggling to stay free from sin, secretly wishing she could indulge in a little immorality but abstaining because of being afraid of getting caught. No, Jesus is coming for a church passionately and utterly devoted to Him-one that is free on the inside. — Mike Bickle