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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Abstinence

Abstinence is approved of God.

Chaucer.

Abstinence is the surety of temperance.

Plato.

Too much is a vanity; enough is a feast.

Quarles.

Abstinence is the great strengthener and clearer of reason.

South.

Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.

Tillotson.

Abstaining is favorable both to the head and the pocket.

Horace Greeley.

Abstaining so as really to enjoy, is the epicurism, the very perfection, of reason.

Rousseau.

The more a man denies himself, the more shall he obtain from God.

Horace.

By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigor to resolution.

Dr. Johnson.

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.

Samuel Johnson.

Abstinence is whereby a man refraineth from anything which he may lawfully take.

Elyot.

  • Against diseases here the strongest fence
  • Is the defensive virtue, abstinence.
  • Herrick.

    To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be, not a virtue, but the groundwork of a virtue.

    Johnson.

    A rich man cannot enjoy a sound mind nor a sound body without exercise and abstinence; and yet these are truly the worst ingredients of poverty.

    Lord Kames.

  • His life is parallel’d
  • E’en with the stroke and line of his great justice;
  • He doth with holy abstinence subdue
  • That in himself which he spurs on his power
  • To qualify in others.
  • Shakespeare.

    We read of a fountain in Arabia upon whose basin is inscribed, “Drink, and away;” but how delicious is that hasty draught, and how long and brightly the thought of its transient refreshment dwells in the memory.

    Tuckerman.

    Never add artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice until thou findest that time hath decayed thy natural heat.

    Sir Walter Raleigh.