Sunday, December 11, 2011 – Self-Control
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. ~ Benjamin Franklin
I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak. ~ Lillian Hellman
I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it. ~ Mae West
One should not lose one’s temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end. ~ William Butler Yeats
Discipline and concentration are a matter of being interested. ~ Tom Kite
Discipline is remembering what you want. ~ David Campbell
Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
The first attribute that characterizes the greater man from the moron is his thicker layer of inhibition. ~ Martin H. Fischer
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me. ~ Michel de Montaigne
How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don’t want to discourage it completely. ~ Franklin P. Jones
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to. ~ Oscar Wilde
It’s all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back. ~ Mick Jagger
Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves. ~ Henry Miller
If we resist our passions, it is more because of their weakness than because of our strength. ~ La Rochefoucauld
Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch. ~ Robert Orben
Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper bringing-up, a sound set of values – and witnesses. ~ Franklin P. Jones
An element of abstention, of restraint, must enter into all finer joys. ~ Vida D. Scudder
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is…. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. ~ C. S. Lewis
You are a puppet, but in the hands of the infinite, which may be your own. ~ Antonio Porchia
Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. ~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911
Punishment may make us obey the orders we are given, but at best it will only teach an obedience to authority, not a self-control which enhances our self-respect. ~ Bruno Bettelheim
Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence. ~ Franz Kafka
You must have discipline to have fun. ~ Julia Child
Self-command is the main elegance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. ~ George Eliot
It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles. ~ Muriel Spark
Nothing could bother me more than the way a thing goes dead once it has been said. ~ Gertrude Stein
As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery
Be blind. Be stupid. Be British. Be careful. ~ Virginia Graham
I have been cautioned to talk but be careful not to say anything. I do not consider this a difficult task. ~ Mark Twain
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there. ~ Yogi Berra
Be prepared, and be careful not to do your good deeds when there’s no one watching you. ~ Tom Lehrer
Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them. ~ Peter Ustinov
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method. ~ Herman Melville
I can have incredible self-discipline. But see, I think it’s obviously a form of stupidity. ~ John Malkovich
Just Above Sunset 