Self Renunciation Quotes & Sayings

Self-love is the first teacher of self-renunciation. — Swami Vivekananda

It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in. — Annie Besant

A saint addicted to excessive self-abnegation is a dangerous associate; he may infect you with poverty, and a stiffening of those joints which are needed for advancement-in a word, with more renunciation than you care for-and so you flee the contagion. — Victor Hugo

Therefore by the example of Abram, entire self-renunciation is enjoined, that we may live and die to God alone. — John Calvin

If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The desert Arab found no joy like the joy of voluntarily holding back. He found luxury in abnegation, renunciation, self restraint. He made nakedness of the mind as sensuous as nakedness of the body. He saved his own soul, perhaps, and without danger, but in a hard selfishness. — T.E. Lawrence

The way to liberation lies through this realization of the Self, by God-communion and by remaining in this God-aware state of the soul while performing dutiful actions. Any individual can reach this supreme actionless state by the renunciation of all fruits of actions: performing all dutiful acts without harbouring in his heart any likes and dislikes, possessing no material desires, and feeling God, not the ego, as the Doer of all actions. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Love is the fruit of prayer ... Patiently abiding in prayer signifies a man's renunciation of himself. Therefore the self-denial of the soul turns into love for God. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Truth, purity, self-control, firmness, fearlessness, humility, unity, peace, and renunciation - these are the inherent qualities of a civil resister. — Mahatma Gandhi

All honor to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar. — John Stuart Mill

Without parlaying with the renunciation of the world, a person must establish a means to live in harmony with the uncertainties of a chaotic world. — Kilroy J. Oldster

There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice. — Eric Hoffer

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. — Simone Weil

There is nothing so high as renunciation of self. — Swami Vivekananda

The life of the cenobite is a human problem. When we speak of convents, those seats of error but innocence, of mistaken views but good intentions, of ignorance but devotion, of torment but martyrdom, we must nearly always say yes or no ... The monastery is a renunciation. Self-sacrifice, even when misdirected, is still self-sacrifice. To assume as duty a strict error has its peculiar grandeur. — Victor Hugo

Faith itself has no merit; in fact, by its nature it is self-emptying. It involves our complete renunciation of any confidence in our own righteousness and a relying entirely on the perfect righteousness and death of Christ. — Jerry Bridges

The Buhha was a monastic, but the practice of mindfulness in the context of any lifestyle is one of renunciation. Every moment of mindfulness renounces the reflexive, self-protecting response of the mind in favor of clear and balanced understanding. In the light of the wisdom that comes from balanced undertanding, attachment to having things be other than what they ar falls away. — Sylvia Boorstein

It is human self-renunciation when a man denies himself and the world opens up to him. But it is Christian self-renunciation when he denies himself and, because the world precisely for this
shuts itself up to him, he must as one thrust out by the world seek God's confidence. The double-danger lies precisely in meeting opposition there where he had expected to find support, and
he has to turn about twice; whereas the merely human self-resignation turns once. — Soren Kierkegaard

A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation. — Eric Hoffer

If our life is not a course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians. — William Law

Giving up alcohol or cigarettes is a lead-pipe cinch compared to the renunciation of complacence by a former (self-appointed) elite. — Margaret Halsey

As the spiritual leader of six million people, the Dalai Lama can be credited with a significant renunciation of the authority of tradition - of the conventional politics of national self-interest as well as of religion. — Pankaj Mishra

People who are involved in self-discovery lead different types of lives. The lives they lead are not necessarily the lives of renunciation. Rather, it is a structuring of the elements in your life in a particular way. — Frederick Lenz

Alas! it is not the renunciation of our past and future selves that is difficult; it is the steady denial of our present self which makes the disciple. — Amelia E. Barr

O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; yea, rather in this word is included all perfection. — Thomas A Kempis

Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the "religious." The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc. The monk's attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

That matchless remedy (for self realisation) is renunciation of fruits of action. — Mahatma Gandhi

The problem is not that greed is "bad" in early development it is necessary for survival - but that greed has psychological consequences. Specifically, the intention to possess not only intensifies the object self, but it engenders fear of the loss of what is possessed.....It is hard to find a neurotic symptom or a human vice that cannot be traced to the desire to possess or the fear of loss....We can understand that neurotic symptoms might disappear as a by-product of a process that diminishes the dominance of the object self.
Ultimately, renunciation, selflessness, and virtuous behaviour, in general, are necessary because they reflect the nature of reality. — Arthur Deikman

In the renunciation of one's own will to follow the will of God consists the self-renunciation commanded by the Savior, which is an indispensable condition of salvation and Christian perfection. In fact, this is so indispensable that unless this condition is satisfied, salvation is impossible, and Christian perfection even more impossible. — Ignatius Brianchaninov

His occupation gave me the feeling of "tragedy" in the most sensuous meaning of the word. A certain feeling as it were of "self-renunciation," a certain feeling of indifference, a certain feeling of intimacy with danger, a feeling like a remarkable mixture of nothingness and vital power - all these feelings swarmed forth from his calling, bore down upon me, and took me captive, at the age of four. — Yukio Mishima

Only by renunciation of the desire to manipulate and control will the ego melt into the Universal Self of Infinite, Eternal Love. — Maharishi Sadasiva Isham

The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome. — Mark Hopkins

But who is this self that is to be renounced and to have no benefit? It seems that *you* yourself are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is unselfish self-renunciation recommended to you? Again, for *your* benefit and behoof, only through that unselfishness you are procuring your "true benefit." You are to benefit *yourself*, and yet you are not to seek *your* benefit — Max Stirner

Zarathustra received his revelations from the archangels at age thirty, when he began his prophetic mission; Siddhartha's great renunciation of his princely life took place in his thirtieth year. Thoreau at age thirty finished his self-imposed isolation at Walden Pond. — Kevin Dann

Faith implies four things: self-renunciation, reliance with utter confidence on Christ, obedience, and a changed life. — Billy Graham

involve self-denial or giving-up of something. Relinquishment or tyag is the real content of renunciation — J.M. Mehta

Plunge into the world, and then, after a time, when you have suffered and enjoyed all that is in it, will renunciation come; then will calmness come. So fulfill your desire for power and everything else, and after you have fulfilled the desire, will come the time when you will know that they are all very little things; but until you have fulfilled this desire, until you have passed through that activity, it is impossible for you to come to the state of calmness, serenity, and self-surrender. — Swami Vivekananda

Renunciation isn't a moral imperative or a form of self-denial. It's simply cooperation with the way things are: for moments do pass away, one after the other. Resisting this natural unfolding doesn't change it; resistance only makes it painful. So we renounce our resistance, our noncooperation, our stubborn refusal to enter life as it is. We renounce our fantasy of a beautiful past and an exciting future we can cherish and hold on to. Life just isn't like this. Life, time, is letting go, moment after moment. Life and time redeem themselves constantly, heal themselves constantly, only we don't know this, and much as we long to be healed and redeemed, we refuse to recognize this truth. This is why the sirens' songs are so attractive and so deadly. They propose a world of indulgence and wishful thinking, an unreal world that is seductive and destructive. (142) — Norman Fischer

An act of renunciation is an act of union with God. The Divine Master looks lovingly upon a person who gains a victory over self. — Madeleine Sophie Barat