Asceticism Quotes

Asceticism is not that you should not own anything, but that nothing should own you.

American life, in large cities, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it.

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.

When you reach your sixties, you have to decide whether you're going to be a sot or an ascetic. In other words if you want to go on working after you're sixty, some degree of asceticism is inevitable.

Out of the doctrine of original sin grew the crimes and miseries of asceticism, celibacy and witchcraft; woman becoming the helpless victim of all these delusions.

I never did calligraphy... But handwriting is an entirely different kind of thing. It's part of the syndrome of modernism... It's part of that asceticism.

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

Yet in a kingdom containing seven constituent parts, which is upheld like the triple staff ,of an ascetic , there is no ,single part more important ,than the others , by reason of the importance of the qualities of each for the others.

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.

Asceticism in most cases is either the result of a sordid imagination or of passion diverted from its natural course, and experience has shown that when the protection of public morals is entrusted to its votaries, the consequences are usually appalling.

Mastering our emotions has nothing to do with asceticism or repression, for the purpose is not to break the emotions or deny them but to "break in" the emotions, making them teachable because they are tamed.

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.

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only Him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is, 'He leads the way, keep close to Him.'

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.

Genuine asceticism for finding one's own soul and for the good of humanity is worthy of reverence.

If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.

The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a Hell.

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

The ascetic makes a necessity of virtue.

Renounce all things, and thou shalt find all things; give up thy lust, and thou shalt find rest.

However weighed down and entangled in earthly fetters you may be, it can never be too late.

They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.

Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.

Asceticism and celibacy can conceal many incapacities.

Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things!

Without asceticism, self-indulgence would be insignificant.

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

A truly unselfish act is not mine, but God's. It cannot be obstructed. Only for my own plans, my own wishes to study, to work, to rest, eat, or do a service to my fellowman- can some external circumstance "get in the way," and then I am grieved.

The irony is that in our decades, the combination of rationalism, asceticism, and individualism (the so-called Protestant Ethic) has produced precisely the system of boondoggling, luxury-consumption, and status.

Say nothing of the new life you have begun or of the experiment you are making and experiences you expect to have. All this is a matter between God and you, and only between you two.

Nothing happens accidentally or in such a way that you cannot learn from it; you must understand this at once, for this is how your trust grows in the Lord whom you have chosen to follow.

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

Thus you are led from moment to moment in your halter of preoccupation with self, and kindled instantly to displeasure, impatience or anger if an obstacle intervenes.

Asceticism is the right way of thinking for those who have to extirpate their sensual drives because they are ravening beasts of prey. But only for those!

Dieting is our last tie with asceticism.

Faith comes not through pondering but through action.

Asceticism without religion is just another way of cultivating peculiar sensations.

Through practice he has accustomed himself to wish for nothing, and for a person with no wishes, everything goes just as he wishes, explains the Abbot Dorotheus. His will has coincided with God's will, and whatever he asks, he will receive.

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