Asceticism Quotes - Page 2

• Asceticism, it is evident, has a double motivation. If men and women torment their bodies, it is not only because they hope in this way to atone for past sins and avoid future punishments; it is also because they long to visit the mind's antipodes and do some visionary sightseeing.

  Aldous Huxley

  Motivation, Men, Past

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

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• Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.

  William James

  Expression, Ease, May

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.272, Library of America

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• Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge.

  Karl Marx

  Christian, Giving, Easier

  BookCaps, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (2012). “The Communist Manifesto in Plain and Simple English”, p.94, BookCaps Study Guides

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• The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, as instinct.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Happiness, Intelligent, Men

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “The Antichrist”, p.92, Friederich Nietzsche

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• Faith comes not through pondering but through action.

  Tito Colliander

  Action, Pondering

  Tito Colliander (1982). “Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth”, p.1, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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• The saints' deep secret is this: do not seek freedom, and freedom will be given you.

  Tito Colliander

  Secret, Saint, Given

  Tito Colliander (1982). “Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth”, p.12, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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• We notice the person who is for ever bowing and fussily servile, and perhaps say, How humble he is! But the truly humble person escapes notice: the world does not know him.

  Tito Colliander

  Humble, Doe, World

  Tito Colliander (1982). “Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth”, p.26, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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• The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater is the store of your estranged being.

  Karl Marx

  Book, Thinking, Dust

  Karl Marx (1967). “Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1884”

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• Everybody who does not live in a prostitute's bed and on a diet of cocaine snow is called an ascetic nowadays.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Snow, Bed, Doe

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• It is precisely our egoism, our self-centeredness and self-love that cause all our difficulties, our lack of freedom in suffering, our disappointments and our anguish of soul and body.

  Tito Colliander

  Disappointment, Self, Soul And Body

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• There are three kinds of nature in man, as Nicetas Stethatos further explains: the carnal man, who wants to live for his own pleasure, even if it harms others; the natural man, who wants to please both himself and others; and the spiritual man, who wants to please only God, even if it harms himself. The first is lower than human nature, the second is normal, the third is above nature; it is life in Christ.

  Tito Colliander

  Spiritual, Men, Three

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• The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

  Chanakya

  Husband, Cuckoos, Ugly

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• The dunyâ distracts and preoccupies the heart and body, but al-zuhd (asceticism, not giving importance to worldly things) gives rest to the heart and body. Verily, Allâh will ask us about the halâl things we enjoyed, so what about the harâm!

  Hasan of Basra

  Heart, Giving, Als

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• Cast off the burden of sin and you will find within you the upward path that will make your ascent possible.

  Tito Colliander

  Ascent, Path, Sin

  Tito Colliander (1982). “Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth”, p.8, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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• It begins here, and has no end, and no earthly power can coerce it; and it is to be found in the human heart.

  Tito Colliander

  Heart, Ends, Found

  Tito Colliander (1982). “Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth”, p.8, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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• Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream-the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother. Renunciation is not asceticism. Are all beggars Christ? Poverty is not a synonym for holiness; often the reverse.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Mother, Dream, Jesus

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge”, p.30, editionNEXT.com

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• It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Cutting, Monsters, World

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2014). “Frankenstein: The Original Story”, p.140, Lettere Animate Editore

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• Give up a member to save a family, a family to save a village, a village to save a country, and the country to save yourself.

  Vyasa

  Country, Giving Up, Village

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• Some have paid me an undeserved compliment by supposing that my Letters were the ripe fruit of many years' study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how temptation works.

  C. S. Lewis

  Years, Supposing That, Temptation

  C. S. Lewis (2013). “The Screwtape Letters: Annotated Edition”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• The ascetic remembrance of death is opposed to akedia, to anxiety, to depression, and becomes a powerful reminder of eternity, its joyful nostalgia.

  Paul Evdokimov

  Powerful, Anxiety, Remembrance

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• The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals.

  George Orwell

  Love, Loyalty, Essence

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.357, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We find nothing easier than being wise, patient, superior. We drip with the oil of forbearance and sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. For that very reason we ought to discipline ourselves a little; for that very reason we ought to cultivate a little emotion, a little emotional vice, from time to time. It may be hard for us; and among ourselves we may perhaps laugh at the appearance we thus present. But what of that! We no longer have any other mode of self-overcoming available to us: this is our asceticism, our penance.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sympathy, Wise, Emotional

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• 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

  Thanksgiving, Self, Desire

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.115, SCM Press

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• But it certainly is a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and look up at the sky and see the utter nonsense of everything including all the solemn stuff given out by professional asses about the spiritual life; and simply to burst out laughing, and laugh and laugh, with the sky and the trees because God is not in words, and not in systems, and not in liturgical movements, and not in "contemplation" with a big "C," or in asceticism or in anything like that, not even in the apostolate.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Laughter, Sky

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.35, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• This obstinate will to personal happiness is the cause of unrest and division in your soul. Give it up and work against it: the rest will be given you without effort.

  Tito Colliander

  Giving, Effort, Soul

  Tito Colliander (1982). “Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth”, p.23, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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