Quotes & Sayings About Self Restraint

Man conquers the world by conquering himself. — Zeno Of Citium

Do you deny it? Grimani persisted.
Deny it? Only the greatest self-restraint prevents me from laughing it out of countenance. — Kate Ross

Peace can be promoted by the limitation of arms and by the creation of the instrumentality for peaceful settlement of controversies. But it will become a reality only through self-restraint and active effort in friendliness and helpfulness. — Herbert Hoover

Celebration ... is self restraint, is attentiveness, is questioning, is meditating, is awaiting, is the step over into the more wakeful glimpse of the wonder - the wonder that a world is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing, that things are and we ourselves are in their midst, that we ourselves are and yet barely know who we are, and barely know that we do not know all this. — Martin Heidegger

Take liberties you shouldn't and you'll find your liberties are taken from you. — John Kramer

Not just self-restraint, that old killjoy, but communal restraint. — Wendell Berry

All the four stages in a man's life are devised by the seers in Hinduism for imposing discipline and self-restraint. — Mahatma Gandhi

When the heat and motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides, we can neither give nor receive anything truly. But when we find our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the force that harmonizes all warring element — Rabindranath Tagore

True evil - conscious, calculating evil - does not seek to destroy life, but rather encourage it. True evil - malicious in every action - cheers life on. True evil - defiled in every pursuit - is not, as Max Andrews proposes, maximally selfish, rather full of restraint and accommodating in every way to the needs of men, mice, mushrooms, and microbes. True evil - debased in every motion - promotes, defends, and even admires life in its struggle to persist and self-adorn. True evil - known only to itself - urges life to grow more complex, more bold, more adventurous and more expressive, for only then is it at its most vulnerable, and when it is at its most vulnerable it is pregnant with possibility. Nothing, after all, can be truly lost or truly broken before it is first acquired, held to the bosom, adored, and cherished. — John Zande

The effect of tea is cooling and as a beverage it is most suitable. It is especially fitting for persons of self-restraint and inner worth. — Lu Yu

By our day, self-restraint was considered madness. — Mark Sayers

Gingrich was a far more volatile and aggressive individual than Boehner, but the institutional norms of self-restraint, and perhaps even self-interest, have broken down under the pressure of an increasingly abnormal Republican Party. — George Packer

Sometimes, humanity surprises me with all its lack of control over the primordial urges. These innate urges are the biological traits that make us similar to the rest of the animal kingdom. But the modern qualities that make us superior to all the animals are intellect and self-control. — Abhijit Naskar

Put another way, if you don't educate your children for metaphysical truth and moral virtue, mainstream culture will do it for you. Absent shared commitment to these spiritual and moral verities, it is hard to see how we renew our families, our communities, and our country with an ethic of duty, self-restraint, stewardship, and putting the needs of people, not the state or corporations, first. — Rod Dreher

The one condition for fighting for peace and liberty is to acquire self-restraint. — Mahatma Gandhi

But at the heart of character is the ability to restrain our desires. As a man grows in character, he builds the muscles of self-restraint. — Richard E. Simmons III

When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education ... the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint ... It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold ... they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters. — Alexis De Tocqueville

You can give so much in this life, and that offers you many opportunities to release the self. For example, you can give time, helpfulness, donations, restraint, patience, noncontention, and forgiveness. Any path of service - including raising a family, caring for others, and many kinds of work - incorporates generosity. Envy - and its close cousin, jealousy - is a major impediment to generosity. So notice the suffering in envy, how it is an affliction upon you. Envy actually activates some of the same neural networks involved with physical pain (Takahashi et al. 2009). In a compassionate and kind way, remind yourself that you will be all right even if other people have fame, money, or a great partner - and you don't. To free yourself from the clutches of envy, send compassion and loving-kindness to people you envy. — Rick Hanson

Let India become alive by self-purification, that is self-restraint and self-denial, and she will be a boon to herself and mankind. — Mahatma Gandhi

Meaning and morality of One's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self expansion by experimenting and by living dangerously. Life consists of an infinite number of possibilities and the healthy person explores as many of them as posible. Religions that teach pity, self-contempt, humility, self-restraint and guilt are incorrect. The good life is ever changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative and risky. — Friedrich Nietzsche

People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. — Eric Hoffer

Restraint:
"There are three things that must always act restrained.
Even five that should not use violence as their final word:
The diplomat negotiating for his lord,
The teacher instilling knowledge,
The parent dealing with exasperating children,
The officer establishing respect among the troops,
And the wronged seeking justice."
- The Order of Things, Jan Alinckbroodt,
Clinohumite poet philosopher (457 fTF - 620 fTF)(translated by D. J. Kenny) — D.J. Kenny

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint. — James Russell Lowell

He wanted to take Homer Wells in his arms, and hug him, and kiss him, but he could only hope that Homer understood how much Dr. Larch's self-esteem was dependent on his self-control. — John Irving

The man who wears the yellow-dyed robe but is not free from stains himself, without self-restraint and integrity, is unworthy of the robe. — Gautama Buddha

Cooking gave us not just the meal but also the occasion: the practice of eating together at an appointed time and place. This was something new under the sun, for the forager of raw food would have likely fed himself on the go and alone, like all the other animals. (Or, come to think of it, like the industrial eaters we've more recently become, grazing at gas stations and eating by ourselves whenever and wherever.) But sitting down to common meals, making eye contact, sharing food, and exercising self-restraint all served to civilize us. — Michael Pollan

There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Toad, who happens to have the ball at that moment, doesn't seem to think it's a very good idea. But then Omar utters those golden words that have the magical power to obliterate every child's self-restraint anywhere in the world: "You don't have the guts to do it! — Fredrik Backman

Will, therefore, is the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable experience of shame and doubt in infancy. — Erik Erikson

Asceticism, also called ascesis, is the practice of rigorous self-denial and active self-restraint and is performed as a spiritual discipline. Like — Randi Fredricks, Ph.D.

You can't just do whatever you feel like." "You can't just do anything you want." "You have to learn self-restraint." "You're only interested in gratifying your desires." "You don't care about anything but your own pleasure." Can you hear the judgmentality in these admonitions? Can you see how they reproduce the mentality of domination that runs our civilization? Goodness comes through conquest. Health comes through conquering bacteria. Agriculture is improved by eliminating pests. Society is made safe by winning the war on crime. On my walk today, students accosted me, asking if I wanted to join the "fight" against pediatric cancer. There are so many fights, crusades, campaigns, so many calls to overcome the enemy by force. No wonder we apply the same strategy to ourselves. Thus it is that the inner devastation of the Western psyche matches exactly the outer devastation it has wreaked upon the planet. Wouldn't you like to be part of a different kind of revolution? — Charles Eisenstein

Among people lacking self-restraint, those apt to be impulsive40 are better than those who are in possession of an argument [logos] but do not abide by it. For — Aristotle.

Do you usually show so little self restraint, special agent? Or do you ask all the girls to marry you? — Tate Hallaway

I do not see any beauty in self-restraint. — Mary MacLane

Sometimes you don't even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about — David Brooks

We can afford to exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it. — Woodrow Wilson

The simplest things that need self-restraint are the most difficult to replicate. — Irving Stone

There is always a limit to self-indulgence, but none to self-restraint. — Mahatma Gandhi

You were upset. I don't want you feeling forced into anything, he pressed on, horrified at his own words. Mental. Since when did he let chivalry get in the way of a blowjob? Talk about boycotting oneself, jeez. — Elle Aycart

Liberty depends on self-restraint. Freedom is freedom only when controlled and limited. — Edith Hamilton

All of the solutions to our growth-based problems involve some form of self-restraint. That's why most of those solutions remain just good ideas. That's also why we will probably hit the wall, and why the outcomes described in the previous chapters of this book are likely. The sustainability revolution will occur. The depletion of nonrenewable resources ensures that humankind will eventually base its economy on renewable resources harvested at rates of natural replenishment. But that revolution will be driven by crisis. — Richard Heinberg

We must formulate, with both imagination and restraint, a new approach to the Middle East - not pressing our case so hard that the Arabs feel their neutrality and nationalism are threatened ... while at the same time trying to hasten the inevitable Arab acceptance of the permanence of Israel ... We must ... seek a permanent settlement among Arabs and Israelis based not on an armed truce but on mutual self-interest. — John F. Kennedy

I am more and more convinced that some people are put in our lives solely to try our patience and tamper with our tolerance levels. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Madonna has no equal at getting attention. She often seems to behave like someone who has been under severe restraint and can now say and do whatever she likes without fear of reprisal. She delights in being challenged, in telling more than she planned, in going further than she had intended. She will answer any question because she is genuinely interested in her own reply. A conversation or an interview then can become an opportunity for self-discovery, or just discovery. It's a hearty mix of self-consciousness and self-confidence. It's a type of courage, this free fall into the perplexing public now. — Carrie Fisher

I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't understand these rules. Writing rules. Eating rules. Studying rules. Loving rules. Everything in life seems to be governed by rules. Is that the only way to keep a person grounded? Does it really instil self-restraint or is it just a fear tactic that's used so that no one can fly to the highest realms of glory? — Aditi Bose

Self-restraint is feeling your oats without sowing them. — Shannon Fife

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. — Theodore Roosevelt

Who is going to be the first to face up to the need for self-restraint in the number of children brought into the world? — Prince Philip

There is a difference between what you want, and what you need. — Abhijit Naskar

At the same time the Muslims are commanded to exercise self-restraint as much as possible. Force
is a dangerous weapon. It may have to be used for self-defense or self-preservation, but we must
always remember that self-restraint is pleasing in the eyes of Allah. Even when we are fighting, it
should be for a principle not out of passion. — Abdullah Yusuf Ali

The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint. — Leo Tolstoy

As long as the artist invents and is inspired, he remains in a constrained state of mind, at least for the purpose of communication. He then wants to say everything, which is the wrong tendency of young geniuses or the right prejudice of old bunglers. Thus, he fails to recognize the value and dignity of self-restraint, which is indeed for both the artist and the man the first and the last, the most necessary and the highest goal. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. — Jonathan Sacks

Self confidence is the ability to exercise restraint in the face of disrespect and still show respect in response. — Simon Sinek

Human nature, essentially changeable, unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint; if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it renders everything asunder, the wall, and the bonds and its very self. — Kafka, Franz

the other vices seize individuals, this is the one passion that sometimes takes hold of an entire state. Never has an entire people burned with love for a woman, no state in its entirety has placed its hope in money or profit; ambition seizes men one by one on a personal basis, lack of self-restraint does not afflict a whole people; often they rush to anger in one mass. — Seneca.

Often the greatest challenge of the animal welfare movement is to remind people of the things they already know to be true-that to mistreat any animal is beneath us, that cruelty of any kind is dishonorable and inexcusable, and that we all have duties of kindness and self-restraint in the treatment of our fellow creatures. — Wayne Pacelle

Perhaps it's true that in our sex-saturated culture it does take a certain amount of self-discipline to resist having sex, but restraint does not equal morality. And let's be honest: if this were simply about resisting peer pressure and being strong, then the women who have sex because they actively want to - as appalling as that idea might be to those who advocate abstinence - wouldn't be scorned. Because the "strength" involved in these women's choice would be about doing what they want despite pressure to the contrary, not about resisting the sex act itself. — Jessica Valenti

The Beats, like their successors in the Sixties, have often been described as 'idealists'. But fantasies of total gratification are not the product of idealism. They arise from a narcissism that, finding the world unequal to its desires, retreats into a realm of heedless self-absorption. Modesty, convention, and self-restraint then appear as the enemies rather than as the allies of humanity. In this sense, the Beat generation marks a step away from civilization. — Roger Kimball

half Scottish, respectable, and imbued with the powerful emotional restraint that those races have inherited somehow (via God knows what route) from the Spartans. It was a matter of self-conquest, refusal to show weakness, refusal to become a burden to others. This inheritance does not diminish one's natural sympathies, it merely makes them harder to express and to receive, and it is a legacy which it is extremely hard to unlearn. — Louis De Bernieres

So why has this potentially self-destructive system of economic arrangements lasted? Probably because of habits of restraint, honesty and moderation which accompanied its emergence. — Tony Judt

This, I realized now watching Dienekes rally and tend to his men, was the role of the officer: to prevent those under this command, at all stages of battle
before, during and after
from becoming "possessed." To fire their valor when it flagged and rein in their fury when it threatened to take them out of hand. That was Dienekes' job. That was why he wore the transverse-crested helmet of an officer. His was not, I could see now, the heroism of an Achilles. He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads. He was just a man doing a job. A job whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, not for his own sake, but for those whom he led by his example. — Steven Pressfield

Show me you have one iota of self-restraint."

"I will," I said quickly.

"Stay away from her."

"Okay."

"Keep your hands off her."

"I'll try."

He scowled at me.

"I will," I said.

He wiggled his fingers at me. "And it might help public relations with Lori's pop if you put on a shirt and quit walking around here like sex on a stick. — Jennifer Echols

Now you know how I fooled you," he would say. "Try to figure out on your own how your congressmen and clergymen fool you. There is no restraint that isn't self-imposed: you are all absolutely free. — Robert Anton Wilson

Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo. — Ambrose Bierce

Be grateful to him who curses you, for he gives you a mirror to show what cursing is, also a chance to practise self-restraint; so bless him and be glad. Without exercise, power cannot come out; without the mirror, we cannot see ourselves. — Swami Vivekananda

It has taken me nearly twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public; and I am not sure that I am not still regarded as a suspicious character in some quarters. — George Bernard Shaw

But the self-controlled man, moving among objects, with his senses under restraint, and free from both attraction and repulsion, attains peace. — Chinmayananda Saraswati

I have read all of Daniel Aaron's books, and admired them, but in The Americanist I believe he has composed an intellectual and social memoir for which he will be remembered. His self-portrait is marked by personal tact and admirable restraint: he is and is not its subject. The Americanist is a vision of otherness: literary and academic friends and acquaintances, here and abroad. Eloquently phrased and free of nostalgia, it catches a lost world that yet engendered much of our own. — Harold Bloom

Anarchism proposes to rescue the self-respect and independence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by authority. Only in freedom can man grow to his full stature. Only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best in him. Only in freedom will he realize the true force of the social bonds which knit men together, and which are the true foundation of a normal social life. — Emma Goldman

Willful ignorance and endless laws become the replacement for self-education and self-restraint, because ignorance and laws are easy. — Holly Lisle

Self restraint in speech, food, entertainment and vanity are the most essential fundamental of spiritual growth. — Nouman Ali Khan

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint. — Lewis H. Lapham

Remember there is always a limit to self-indulgence, none to restraint ... Civilization , in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication but in the deliberate and voluntary restriction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment , and increases the capacity for service . — Mahatma Gandhi

The world is living today in what might be described as an era of carnality, which glorifies sex, hates restraint, identifies purity with coldness, innocence with ignorance, and turns men and women into Buddhas with their eyes closed, hands folded across their breasts, intently looking inward, thinking only of self. — Fulton J. Sheen

If the general attitude of Canadians toward their mighty neighbor to the south could be distilled into a single phrase, that phrase would probably be "Oh, shut up." The Americans talked too much, mainly about themselves. Their torrid love affair with their own history and legend exceeded-painfully-the quasi-British Canadian idea of modesty and self-restraint ... They were forever busting their buttons in spasms of insufferable yahoo pride or all too publicly agonizing over their crises. — Bruce McCall

Self-government requires qualities of self-denial and restraint. — John F. Kennedy

The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best. It requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues
self-restraint. Why cannot I take as many trout as I want from a stream? Why cannot I bring home from the woods a rare wildflower? Because if I do, everybody in this democracy should be able to do the same. My act will be multiplied endlessly. To provide protection for wildlife and wild beauty, everyone has to deny himself proportionately. Special privilege and conservation are ever at odds. — Edwin Way Teale

The church is often called a killjoy for protesting against sexual license. But the real killing of joy comes with the grabbing of pleasure. As with credit card usage. the price tag is hidden at the start, but the physical and emotional debt incurred will take a long time to pay off. — N. T. Wright

The first discipline modernity's originators imposed upon themselves was that of self-restraint, learning to live with vulgarity. Their high expectations for effectiveness were made possible by low expectations of what was to be. — Allan Bloom

True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint. — Michel De Montaigne

Religions - most of them, anyway - had promoted self-effacement, sacrifice, restraint. — Nancy Kress

I too took the plunge - the vow to observe brahmacharya for life. I must confess that I had not then fully realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. The importance of the vow is being more and more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Golf in the interest of good health and good manners. It promotes self-restraint and affords a chance to play the man and act the gentleman. — William Howard Taft

If you want to write believable fiction, you will have to cross over the line of your self-restraint and revel in the words and ideas that you would never express in your everyday life. — Walter Mosley

Great men have great discipline. — Habeeb Akande

Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador. — Robert A. Heinlein

The divine within you is stronger than anything that is without you. Therefore, be not afraid of anything. Rely on your own Inner Self, the Divinity within you. Tap the source through looking within. Improve yourself. Build your character. Purify the heart. Develop the divine virtues. Eradicate evil traits. Conquer all that is base in you. Endeavor to attain all that is worthy and noble. Make the lower nature the servant of the higher through discipline, Tapas, self-restraint and meditation. This is the beginning of your freedom. — Sivananda

Self-restraint may be alien to the human temperament, but humanity without restraint will dig its own grave. — Marya Mannes

It is impossible to restore the sustainable societies of indigenous and aboriginal peoples. But the values they embodied - careful stewardship of the earth, modest use of its riches, safeguarding the future of the generations to come, restraint and as high a degree of self-provisioning as possible - can reanimate ancient and still unrealized dreams of a secure sustenence for all. — Jeremy Seabrook

His hand caresses my cheek. "Scarlett, I don't want to lose you by fucking up our friendship. I want you in my life, and if we d this, I will lose you. If that means showing some self-restraint for once in my goddamn life, then I will." Both his hands cup my cheeks. "You make me want to be a better person. This is me being a better person. — Denise Grover Swank

Restraint never ruins one's health. What ruins it,is not restraint but outward suppression. A really self-restrained person grows every day from strength to strength and from peace to more peace. The very first step in self-restraint is the restraint of thoughts. — Mahatma Gandhi

Ours is peculiarly an age of irreverence, and as the consequence, the spirit of lawlessness, which brooks no restraint and which is desirous of casting off everything which interferes with the free course of self-will, is rapidly engulfing the earth like some giant tidal — Arthur W. Pink

Noble self-restraint must have something to restrain. — Edith Hamilton

Self-regulation is not simply a moral characteristic. It is biologically healthy for both your mind and the body. — Abhijit Naskar

That Anarchist world, I admit, is our dream; we do believe - well, I, at any rate, believe this present world, this planet, will some day bear a race beyond our most exalted and temerarious dreams, a race begotten of our wills and the substance of our bodies, a race, so I have said it, 'who will stand upon the earth as one stands upon a footstool, and laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars,' but the way to that is through education and discipline and law. Socialism is the preparation for that higher Anarchism; painfully, laboriously we mean to destroy false ideas of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and poisonous and hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social right-dealing and a tradition of right-feeling and action. Socialism is the schoolroom of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint we shall make free men. — H.G.Wells

It is not easy to find someone your size once the Freshman Fifteen turns to the Sophomore Forty or the Senior Sixty. Even when, through some miracle of self-restraint and bulimia, college girls managed to continue to have feminine bodies, so many of these tacky sluts have never heard word one about what fashion entails. — Thomm Quackenbush

For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness; whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control. — Samuel Smiles

It takes tremendous self-restraint on the part of the student not to want to monopolize the teacher's attention, to live a very controlled life and a happy life, and of course, be dedicated to the cause. — Frederick Lenz