Abstinence Quotes - Page 6

• Many tribal peoples consider illness to be one of the most reliable sources of revelation. Many of the practices that traditional religions impose upon seekers-abstinence, isolation, stillness-are practices that illness imposes upon us, so it is in a sense a cocoon that allows revelation to unfold.

  Kat Duff

  Practice, Cocoons, Isolation

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• Taboo restrictions are distinct from religious or moral prohibitions. They are not based upon any divine ordinance, but may be said to impose themselves on their own account. They differ from moral prohibitions in that they fall into no system that declares quite generally that certain abstinences must be observed and gives reasons for that necessity.

  Sigmund Freud

  Religious, Fall, Giving

  Sigmund Freud (2003). “Totem and Taboo”, p.22, Routledge

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• I'm against suing tobacco companies. I think abstinence is a perversion. I think Bush's lies are worse than Clinton's. I think Vegas was better when it was run by the mob. I think men are only as loyal as their options. I think stereotypes are true and rehab is for quitters.

  Bill Maher

  Perversion

  "Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home". Documentary, Comedy, 2003.

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• I'm working on something a little different. It's a technique I call, 'tantric abstinence.' Now, the way this works is I meet a woman, I charm the heck out of her, and then right as she's considering sleeping with me, I say something so awkward that she leaves and I have to start over again with another woman entirely.

  Christian Finnegan

  Sleep, Starting Over, Awkward

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• Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt.

  John Stuart Mill

  Christian, Character, Evil

  "On Liberty". Philosophical work by John Stuart Mill (ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion), 1859.

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• Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

  William Shakespeare

  Angel, Giving, Devil

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 4, l. 160

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• Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus.... Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Morning, Children, Food

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• If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love - You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Love You, Men

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• Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either master the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency.

  William Shakespeare

  Nature, Night, Devil

  William Shakespeare, Alexander Chalmers (1862). “The Complete Works of Shakespeare: With a Memoir”, p.613, Prabhat Prakashan

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• How will it be with us in the future life, when everything that has gratified us in this world: riches, honors, food and drink, dress, beautifully furnished dwellings, and all attractive objects-how will it be, I say, when all these things leave us-when they will all seem to us a dream, and when works of faith and virtue, of abstinence, purity, meekness, humility, mercy, patience, obedience, and others will be required of us?

  John of Kronstadt

  Dream, Humility, Dwelling

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• Purity is the fruit of prayer.

  Mother Teresa

  Prayer, Catholic, Fruit

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• It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov't from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.

  James Madison

  Order, Rights, Doubt

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• Unchaste abandon and the self-surrender of the soul to the world of sensuality paralyzes the primordial powers of the moral person: the ability to perceive, in silence, the call of reality, and to make, in the retreat of this silence, the decision appropriate to the concrete situation of concrete action.

  Josef Pieper

  Moral, Surrender, Sensuality

  "Fortitude: And Temperance".

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• Our main reproductive organ is our brain.

  Molly Kelly

  Brain, Organs

  Molly Kelly (1997). “Saved Sex: Chastity-- Because You're Worth It”

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• If you can control yourself sexually, you can control yourself. Period.

  A. C. Green

  Periods, Sexually, Ifs

  A. C. Green, Joann Cole Webster (1994). “Victory”

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• I would like to outlaw contraception... contraception is disgusting - people using each other for pleasure.

  Joseph Scheidler

  People, Pleasure, Outlaw

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• Did you ever notice that everyone in favour of birth control has already been born ?

  Benny Hill

  Birth Control, Favour, Born

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• If a man's aspirations towards a righteous life are serious.. .if he earnestly and sincerely seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food, because, not to mention the excitement of the passions produced by such food, it is plainly immoral, as it requires an act contrary to moral feeling, i. e., killing - and is called forth only by greed.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Passion, Men, Animal

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• It is horrible! It is not the suffering and the death of the animals that is horrible, but the fact that the man without any need for so doing crushes his lofty feeling of sympathy and mercy for living creatures and does violence to himself that he may be cruel. The first element of moral life is abstinence.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Crush, Men, Animal

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• When a married person uses pornography or is unfaithful, it compromises not just his or her purity, but also compromises the spouse's purity. As a church, we need to teach a higher standard than abstinence. We need to preach a righteous lifestyle.

  Christine O'Donnell

  Church, Needs, Use

  "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", www.nbcnews.com. September 13, 2010.

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• Conservatives, who have presumed that the key to preventing AIDS is abstinence-only education, and liberals, who have focused on distribution of condoms, should both note that the intervention that has tested most cost-effective in Africa is neither... Secular bleeding hearts and religious bleeding hearts will have to forge a common cause.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  Religious, Heart, Keys

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• Sexual intercourse is a gift that says, "Do not open until marriage." If you've already unwrapped it, wrap it up again!

  Molly Kelly

  Intercourse, Wraps, Ifs

  "Sex, Love, and You: Making the Right Decision". Book by Judy Lickona, Thomas Lickona, and William Boudreau, 1994.

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• How do we want our air? Pure. How do we want our water? Pure. How do we want sex on our wedding night? Pure.

  Molly Kelly

  Sex, Night, Air

  "Sex, Love, and You: Making the Right Decision". Book by Judy Lickona, Thomas Lickona, and William Boudreau, 1994.

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• Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.

  Joycelyn Elders

  Condom, Vow, Break

  "Dr. Joycelyn Elders Is So Fucking Cool" by Kate Harding, June 03, 2007.

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• Dogs are born knowing exactly what they want to do: eat, scratch, roll in disgusting stuff, sniff and squabble with other dogs, roam, sleep, have sex. Little of this is what we want them to do, of course. We ask them to sit, stay, smell peasant, practice abstinence, and be accommodating.

  Jon Katz

  Dog, Sex, Sleep

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