Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

All sin is a form of lying...Total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Abstinence | Lying | Moderation | Sin | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Bad books are like intoxicating drinks; they furnish neither nourishment, nor medicine. Both improperly excite; the one the mind; the other by body. The desire for each increases by being fed. Both ruin; one the intellect; the other the health; and together, the soul. The safeguard against each is the same - total abstinence from all that intoxicates either body or mind.

Abstinence | Body | Books | Desire | Health | Mind | Soul | Wisdom |

William Gilmore Simms

No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.

Abstinence | Doubt | Life | Life | Man | Society | Solitude | Wisdom |

Aristippus NULL

It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without being worsted.

Abstinence |

Talmud or The Talmud NULL

One who causes himself pain by abstinence from something he desires is called a sinner.

Abstinence | Pain |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders a man happy.

Abstinence | Abuse | Excess | Happy | Man |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Gossip is an expression of a restless mind; but merely to be silent does not indicate a tranquil mind, Tranquillity does not come into being with abstinence or denial; it comes with the understanding of what is. To understand what is needs swift awareness, for what is is not static.

Abstinence | Tranquility | Understanding | Understand |

Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi

If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals [animal food].

Abstinence | Man |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbor.

Abstinence |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

To pious and peaceable persons [Augustine] gives this advice: that they should correct in mercy whatever they can; that what they cannot, they should patiently bear, and affectionately lament, till God either reform and correct it, or, at the harvest, root up the tares and sift out the chaff. All pious persons should study to fortify themselves with these counsels, lest, while they consider themselves as valiant and strenuous defenders of righteousness, they depart from the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the only Kingdom of righteousness. For since it is the will of God that the communion of his church should be maintained in this external society, those who, from an aversion of wicked men, destroy the token of that society, enter on a course in which they are in great danger of falling from the communion of the saints. .

Abstinence |

Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

The pious mind distinguishes between what is written with reference to the deity and with reference to the flesh, and thus avoids sacrilege.

Abstinence | Body | Desire | Prodigality | Soul | Spirit | Teacher |

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL

In order to merit, it is enough to know that our merits do not suffice for us.

Abstinence | Appetite | Freedom | Soul |

John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising the dead.

Abstinence | Beauty | Body | Change | Friend | Sacrifice | Woman | Beauty |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention? Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time. Holmes: That was the curious incident

Abstinence | Joy | Sorrow | Will |

Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

The pious mind distinguishes between what is written with reference to the deity and with reference to the flesh, and thus avoids sacrilege.

Abstinence | Body | Desire | Prodigality | Soul | Spirit | Teacher |

Thomas Jefferson

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Abstinence | Order | Present | Will |

Wilhelm Reich

The general psychosomatic disease of civilized humanity is "orgastic impotence" the inability to achieve total orgasm, caused by the anxieties implicit in our antisexual religions and patriarchal institutions.

Abstinence |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

Use, do not abuse; the wise man arrange things so. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Abstinence | Excess | Man | Wise |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.

Abstinence | Excess | Man | Wise |