"Abstinence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Capuchin, "the good St. Francis bade his sons make merry with all simplicity. Give the Capuchins wherewith to make a good meal this day, that they may endure with cheerfulness the abstinence and fasting they must observe all the rest of the year,—barring, of course, ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... tomb-paintings excavated before their freshness fades. Aton-worship and Mohammedanism have an almost equal fascination for this Irishman, and the romance is permeated with their mysticism. The prophecies of a Mohammedan saint who has attained the light by a life of abstinence and self-discipline, influence the current of the romance no less than the visions of the Pharaoh Messiah, whose pure religion threatened his country with disasters ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... that hath made Both heav'n and earth copartners in its toil, And with lean abstinence, through many a year, Faded my brow, be destin'd to prevail Over the cruelty, which bars me forth Of the fair sheep-fold, where a sleeping lamb The wolves set on and fain had worried me, With other voice and fleece of other grain I shall forthwith return, and, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... belly. For food that sets your teeth on edge, eat almonds and cheese, but not more than half an ounce. If drinks have given you indigestion, eat a raw apple. Moderation is best sometimes, at others abstinence. Look every night that your wines don't ferment or leak Always carry a gimlet, adze, and linen cloths; and wash the heads of the pipes with cold water. If the wine boil over, put to it the lees of red wine, and that will cureit. Romney will ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... there may be a man—such as would God there were many!—who hath no love unto riches, but having it fall abundantly unto him, taketh for his own part no great pleasure of it, but, as though he had it not, keepeth himself in like abstinence and penance privily as he would do in case he had it not. And, in such things as he doth openly, he may bestow somewhat more liberally upon himself in his house after some manner of the world, lest he should give other folk occasion to marvel and muse and talk of his manner and misreport him for ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... gratified at all, had been gratified by stealth, broke forth with ungovernable violence as soon as the check was withdrawn. Men flew to frivolous amusements and to criminal pleasures with the greediness which long and enforced abstinence naturally produces. Little restraint was imposed by public opinion. For the nation, nauseated with cant, suspicious of all pretensions to sanctity and still smarting from the recent tyranny of rulers austere in life and powerful in prayer, looked for a time with complacency on the softer ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and the Prophet. The governor also questioned many of the Indians, but could learn nothing from them derogatory to their leader. Desiring to know to what extent the Prophet's teachings controlled his followers, he tempted them with liquor, but they remained true to their vow of total abstinence. ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... He'll get his board free, but it'll be total abstinence for him. I wonder what took ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... cessation of that hope, neutrality would necessarily terminate. But as matters stand at present, Lord Derby is warranted in assuring your Majesty that if there is one subject on which more than another the mind of the country is unanimous, it is that of an entire abstinence from participation in the struggle now going on in Italy. He collects this from the language of politicians of almost every class, from all the public papers, from Addresses and Memorials which he receives every day—some urging, and some congratulating him upon the adoption of a ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... became sensible of his error. To affront one of the friendly chiefs would, he knew, not only compromise the interests of the garrison, but incur the severe displeasure of the commanding officer, who had always enjoined the most scrupulous abstinence from any thing offensive ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection we speak of lay as much in the manner of the trial as in its result—in the sanctities of abstinence, in the holy forbearance to use any one of many decent advantages, in the reverence for the sublime equities of law. Oh, mightiest of spectacles which human grandeur can unfold to the gaze of less civilized nations, when the ermine of the judge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... of abstinence and opodeldoc I passed a better night than I could have hoped for; but took up my lodging in the chapel room, as it is called, for going ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... superiors to give lessons in philosophy, the young novice had from the first to battle against the defects of a voice that was both harsh and weak, a defective pronunciation, and above all, the depression of his physical powers, exhausted as they were by too severe abstinence. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the stomach and lungs in their respective operations; ascribed the player's malady to a disorder in these organs, proceeding from hard drinkings and vociferations, and prescribed a course of stomachics, with abstinence from venery, wine, loud speaking, laughing, singing, coughing, sneezing, or hallooing. "Pah, pah!" cried Ranter, interrupting him, "the remedy is worse than the disease—I wish I knew where to find some tinder water." ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... reform. I have sold off my horses, and I have not touched dice nor card these six months: I would not even put into the raffle for the last Derby." This last was said with the air of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to some assertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... some lemonade? You know our rules: total abstinence. (She puts the tray on the table, and takes up the lemon squeezers, looking ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... sort, rebelling against the old rotten machine in which they had been incarcerated, form themselves into emigrating bands, and start forth to try upon some new soil their great experiment of a free life! How would they welcome toil in all its severity—how willingly practise abstinence, and suffer privation, for the sake of the bold rights which these would purchase!—how willingly take upon themselves the responsibility of their own fate to enjoy a fortune of their own shaping! Hope herself would start ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... rigour of their discipline, they attain to extreme old age; not one of the wise men, so Sylvia informed me, being less than one hundred years old, while some were accredited with upwards of two centuries of life. By reason of their abstinence, they are supposed to be gifted with mysterious occult powers, notably second sight, by which they are able to locate strangers at a great distance from their own country, and to foretell their advent. Not long since they had foretold the coming to the island of a Spanish fleet, when ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... form and demonstrate itself, a heart, at once haughty and tender, a character effeminate, yet invincible; which, fluctuating between weakness and courage, luxury and virtue, has ever set me in contradiction to myself; causing abstinence and enjoyment, pleasure and prudence, equally to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... poor old uncle say that no man knows what he can do till he tries; and the enemy gave us plenty of opportunities of displaying our ingenuity, industry, watchfulness, and abstinence. When poor Penelope wove ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not content with abstract generalities: he was always trying to enforce his views by facts industriously collected from such books of medicine, anatomy, geology, astronomy, chemistry, and history as he could get hold of. For instance, he does not preach abstinence from flesh on pure a priori grounds, but because "the orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order and number of his teeth." We catch here what is perhaps the fundamental paradox of his character—the combination of a curious rational hardness with the wildest and most romantic idealism. ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... flame, and drip bedewing on each bosom beneath. The roasters ripened deliberately, while keen and quick fire told upon the frier, the first course of our feast. Meanwhile I brewed a pot of tea, blessing Confucius for that restorative weed, as I had blessed Moses for his abstinence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... he cured the blind, the palsied, the scrofulous and the halt, they should no longer visit their temples and sacred groves, and admire no more Pan's huge sexuality and hang garlands upon it, nor carve images of Diana and Apollo. Such abstinence they could not comprehend, and deemed it enough that they were ready to proclaim him a god on the occasion of every great miracle, a readiness that gave great scandal and caused many Jews to turn away from Jesus. It was ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... abstinence, the junior partner smiled. It was not a very wide, nor in the least a merry smile; his cheeks bulged only slightly under its gentle pressure, and the satisfaction which smiles traditionally notify seemed savored with a squeeze or two of lemon. But it marked the beginning ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... JANE AUSTEN'S novels are short and singularly lacking in picturesqueness, emotion, colour. Mr. Hamo Bletherley, who has been entrusted with the task of infusing these elements into JANE AUSTEN'S staid and reticent romances, points out that her vocabulary was extraordinarily limited. Her abstinence from decorative epithets led to results that are bald and unconvincing. One may look in vain in her pages for such words as "arresting," "vital," "momentous" or "sinister." She never uses "glimpse," "sense" or "voice" as verbs. We look forward with eager anticipation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... in the full enjoyment of their vitality, as I was able to assure myself all through the winter by irritating them, and not in a state of torpor similar to that of the hibernating animals. From the moment of their hatching they are doomed, although full of life, to an absolute abstinence of seven months' duration; and it is natural to suppose, when we see their present excitement, that an imperious hunger sets them bustling ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... much to his credit. To do him justice, he had not intended to bring the affair to quite such a triumphant conclusion; and perhaps something better than his sense of humor was also touched when he found himself not only exonerated, but transformed into an exemplar of abstinence. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... psychological conditions, which it may be impossible to recreate. It was not natural for a population, of whom so few enjoyed the comforts of life, to accumulate so hugely. The war has disclosed the possibility of consumption to all and the vanity of abstinence to many. Thus the bluff is discovered; the laboring classes may be no longer willing to forego so largely, and the capitalist classes, no longer confident of the future, may seek to enjoy more fully their liberties of consumption so long as they last, ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... heaven toward which she strained, the dwelling-place of light. In short, her philosophy was that of the modern, orthodox American, tinged by a somewhat commercialized Sunday school tradition of an earlier day, and highly approved by the censors of the movies. The peculiar kind of abstinence once euphemistically known as "virtue," particularly if it were combined with beauty, never failed of its reward. Lise, in this sense, was indeed virtuous, and her mirror told her she was beautiful. Almost anything could happen to such a lady: any day she might be carried up into heaven by that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at the North. How vain would be the attempt to reform the drunkards of your town of Lexington, whilst the sober in it continue to drink intoxicating liquors! The first step in the reformation is to induce the sober to change their habits, and create that total abstinence-atmosphere, in the breathing of which, the drunkard lives,—and, for the want of which, he dies. The first step, in the merciful work of delivering the slaveholder from his sin, is similar. It is to bring him under the influence of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... said, "Jesting and levity lead a man on to lewdness. The Massorah (48) is a rampart around the Torah; tithes are a safeguard to riches (49); good resolves are a fence to abstinence (50); a hedge around wisdom is silence" (51). 18. He used to say, "Beloved is man, for he was created in the image (of God); but it was by a special love that it was made known to him that he was created in the image of God, as it is said, 'For in the image of God made ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... of Robert Burton, author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," that, "No verses can please men or live long that are written by water-drinkers," and disposed to undervalue the tact and discretion of some of the advocates of total abstinence, for its abstract principles he can say and think nothing but what is good. But he is writing, be it remembered, of a great artist—one whose mission was that of an artist, not that of a temperance orator,—of one who had served the righteous and good cause of temperance best ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... labors, forced marches, and the violent and long-continued struggles of combat; at other times, he has not exercise sufficient for health. His food is irregularly served. He is sometimes short of provisions, and compelled to pass whole days in abstinence or on shore allowance. Occasionally he cannot obtain even water to drink, through hours of thirsty toil. No Government nor managers of war have ever yet been able to make exact and unfailing provision for the wants and necessities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... overlooked her. I have often been sorry for it since. Conscience seemed to rebuke me when I afterwards discovered what the Lord had been doing for her soul, as if I had neglected her, yet it was not done designedly. She was unknown to us all, except that, as I since found out, her regularity and abstinence from the sins and follies of her young equals in age and station brought upon her many taunts and jeers from others, which she bore very meekly; but at that ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... Lord's; yet determination or deduction of particulars can hardly be made, but in such emergent cases and occasions accidentally falling out, as necessitate thereunto. As in that case, Acts xv., when the synod commands abstinence from blood, and things strangled, and that necessarily, (though the Levitical law was now abrogated,) because the common use thereof by accident grew very scandalous: therefore, by the law of ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... nations, with reference to such points as ablutions, clothing, eating and abstinence from meats,—when rendered obligatory by the force of penalties, occupy exactly the same place in the mind as the principles of moral right and wrong. The same form of dread attaches to the consequences of neglect; the same remorse is felt by the individual offender. The exposure of the naked person ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... time, and his mother could leave him to the charge of our faithful Molly), she fell asleep over her cards. We hushed the servants who came to lay out the supper-table (she would always have this luxurious, nor could any injunction of ours or the Doctor's teach her abstinence), and we sat a while as we had often done before, waiting in silence till she should arouse ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in general is of an amiable and lovely Nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as dispose us to do Good to Mankind. Temperance and Abstinence, Faith and Devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other Virtues; but those which make a Man popular and beloved, are Justice, Charity, Munificence, and, in short, all the good Qualities that render ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... credit for leadership belongs not to any party or to any section, but to those whose consciences were quickened by the teachings of the Bible. Total abstinence was naturally more prevalent among church members than among those outside of the church, and this, of course, was the foundation upon which prohibition rested. The arguments against the use of liquor are the basis of the arguments in favour of prohibition. Because liquor ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... a servant to attend me during the night, fearing the little food I had taken, after so long an abstinence, might produce some serious illness. Every time I groaned or turned, this servant would run to me with a bowl of strong hot coffee, which I could not refuse without disobeying his master's orders. Early in the morning, before ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... a prudent hardy couple, who, by many years of peculiar labour and peculiar abstinence, were the least poor of all the neighbouring cottagers, had an only child (who has been named before) called Agnes: and this cottage girl was reckoned, in spite of the beauty of the elder Miss Rymers, by far the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... lawn tennis clubs. So there may be at dances. So there may be in connection with everything in civilized life and society. But do we therefore bury ourselves? The anchorites secluded themselves in hermitages. The Puritans isolated themselves in consistent abstinence from everything that anybody else did. And there are people now who think that they can keep their children, and that those children will keep themselves in after life, in cotton wool, so as to avoid all temptation of body and mind, and be saved ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... both in limited quantities, were the staple food, the able Scotch physician would have recommended an occasional glass of port wine, or even of stout—if obtainable. As it was, Clare's promise of abstinence, which he kept religiously for several years, was very detrimental to his health. His naturally delicate frame sank under the coarse diet, as soon as the accustomed stimulants were withdrawn, and ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... Endicott and his Council, they are exhorted to prevent the sale of "strong waters" to the Indians, and to punish any of their own people who shall become drunk in the use of them. In the preamble to a law enacted in 1646, one is led to expect an enforcement of the modern principles of abstinence and prohibition; since, after declaring that "drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially of those which hold out and profess the Gospel of Christ Jesus," it goes on to assert that ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... twenty-three, explained that Therese has the power, through prayer, of working out on her own body the ailments of others. The saint's abstinence from food dates from a time when she prayed that the throat disease of a young man of her parish, then preparing to enter holy orders, be transferred to ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... came to an end. The ladies retired to the drawing-room, while the gentlemen prepared to sit over their wine. Being an abstainer, I asked leave to retire with the ladies. I did this for two reasons besides my principles of abstinence. First, I thought the custom a foolish one, as well as being harmful; and, second, I hoped by entering the drawing-room early, I might have a chance to ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... to give a plausible reason for the faith that is in them. You cannot catch an Irish Home Ruler napping, nor will he admit that he was ever wrong. He will talk to the average Englishman about Irish rights and Irish wrongs, Irish virtues and Irish abstinence from crime with a reckless disregard for truth that can only be born of a firm belief that Irish newspapers are never read outside Ireland, and will then walk off and plume himself on the assumption that because he met no point-blank contradiction he has duped his victim into believing ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... which I speak, was yet comparatively unknown, he did not make it a case of conscience; but if he never lent himself to this ellipsis, he, "the lyric Talma," "the exquisite singer," as he has frequently been called, should we not regard his abstinence as a condemnation from which there is no appeal? I do not believe, moreover, that either Nourrit or Dupre authorized by their example a habit so contrary to the rules of French versification, so disagreeable to the well-trained ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... though extremely weakened by almost continual privation of sleep and long abstinence, soon recovered his health. When he found himself in a condition to undertake the voyage, he took Marzavan aside, and said, "Dear Marzavan, it is now time to perform the promise you have made me. My impatience to behold the charming princess, and to relieve her of the torments ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... communion with them was so stated, that therein was not only a case of controversy among the godly, in which always abstinence is the surest side, not only is the judgment of many a case of confession, which it is always dangerous to contradict and condemn, but undeniably a case of competition, between the true church of Scotland, her ministers and professors, owning and adhering to her ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... stimulant, that I am probably no impartial judge of its merits. I will simply say, I do not use it in the field, because it indisposes to muscular activity, and favors reflection when observation is required; and because temporary abstinence provokes the morbid appetite, and renders the ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... shay it wish tearsh in m' eyes. Lemme beg o' you t' reform ere it ish too late. Beware of it, my fren, beware of it. It shtingeth like a serpent, an' biteth like a multiplier—I mean an adder. You haven't got my shuperb self-control, an' so yer only shafety lies in total abstinence. Cheese it, my fren, cheese it on ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... as Carandas had verified the arrangement and constant practice of these gallant diversions, he determined to wait for a day when the lovers would meet, hungry one for the other, after some accidental abstinence. This meeting took place very soon, and the curious hunchback saw the boatman waiting below the square, at the Canal St. Antoine, for the young priest, who was handsome, blonde, slender, and well-shaped, like ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... from them in the body as influenced from the spirit, is unchaste; for the Lord says, "That whosoever looketh upon another's woman, so as to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," Matt. v. 28. It is impossible to enumerate all the causes of abstinence from adulteries in the body only, they being various according to states of marriage, and also according to states of the body; for there are some persons who abstain from them from fear of the civil law and its penalties; some from fear of the loss of reputation and thereby of honor; some ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... was declared against Spain, he justly laid claim to the merit of having foreseen what had at length become manifest to all, but he carefully abstained from arrogant and acrimonious expressions; and this abstinence was the more honorable to him, because his temper, never very placid, was now severely tried, both by gout and by calumny. The courtiers had adopted a mode of warfare, which was soon turned with far more formidable effect against themselves. Half the inhabitants of the Grub Street ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... women one after another, he first wondered whether they were helped by tracts, and then decided that the mind befogged with alcohol was unfit to receive the gospel message. Then for fifteen years he threw himself into a total-abstinence crusade, distributing thousands of pamphlets, calling in one year at over four thousand homes to teach the industrial and moral reasons for total abstinence. Finally, he began to wonder whether back of alcoholism there ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... visits at Maple Grove, continually startled her mother-in-law elect by her loud, ringing laugh, for Nellie was very happy. Her influence, too, over John Jr. became ere long, perceptible in his quiet, gentle manner, and his abstinence from the rude speeches which heretofore had seemed a part ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... judgment the cases which justify a man in so overtaxing his system that he requires a medicine to enable him to digest his dinner or enjoy his sleep must be rare; and that my own use of either wine or beer is very exceptional. Though I am not in strictness of speech a total abstinence man, I am ordinarily a ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... at once. Say every thing that I have said, and say it better. His disposition is with us. Convenience, all political propriety, counsel and would justify his abstinence. A return to Rome would seem weak, fitful, capricious, and would prove that his previous retirement was ill-considered and ill-informed. It would disturb and alarm Europe. But you have, nevertheless, to fight against great odds. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... that he stood calm and curbed the howling of the fanatics round him, and that he was the first and only Jewish authority who counselled abstinence from persecution. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... he ought to take, and how much, as well as what he ought to avoid. The word intemperance is generally employed as applying to the abuse of strong drinks. On this subject much has been written, some advocating total abstinence and others judicious and moderate use. Into this region of controversy we cannot enter. The evils of drinking habits, as they are called, are plain to all. They are a terrible curse to society, and a terrible danger to the individual. They have ruined many a ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... to protect in The Desert, and in Saharan travelling, equally against heat and cold, and wind. A Saharan traveller, having his mouth well covered with the litham, will go at least twenty-four hours longer, fasting in abstinence, whilst his lips will not be parched with thirst. The litham shelters the eyes effectually from the hot sand grains, borne on the deadly wing of the Simoom. A turban is mostly folded round the head as a mark of orthodox Islamism. The young beaux prefer the great red sash wound round the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... curious fancies, or as Louise called them, her "raptures," had now for some time had the fancy to take only a glass of cold water and a piece of dry bread for her breakfast. On account of this abstinence, Henrik now jested, and Petrea answered him quite gaily; Louise, on the contrary, took up the matter quite seriously, and thought—as many others did—that this whim of Petrea's had a distant relationship to folly; and folly, Louise—the sensible Louise—considered the most ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... this abstinence from legislation, on the part of the ancient kings, to be accounted for, except on the supposition that the people would accept, and juries enforce, few or no new laws enacted by their kings? Plainly it can be accounted. for in no ether way. In fact, all history informs us that ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... partial remedy, and that the same want of self-control which makes men and women drunkards would drive some of them to-morrow to other and perhaps worse stimulants. So, while I hope and believe that slowly and steadily the sentiment of individuals {59} is growing toward total abstinence, and that in the course of years, generations, perhaps, it will become the law of the State, I believe in working man to man and woman to woman in building up and strengthening character as the chief safeguard against so great ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... belongings in the carpetbag, which was no more—having been supplanted by a smart little suit-case marked with her initials—was a certificate from the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, duly signed by herself, and witnessed by the grammar-school teacher and the secretary of the organization. On this certificate (which was decorated by many presentations in dim black and white of mid-Victorian ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... they curtail necessity? To produce more is impossible; they can work neither harder nor longer. Shall they take a middle course, and consume five and a half while producing six and a half? They would soon find that with the stomach there is no compromise—that beyond a certain degree of abstinence it is impossible to go—that strict necessity can be curtailed but little without injury to the health; and, as for increasing the product,—there comes a storm, a drought, an epizootic, and all the hopes of the farmer are dashed. In short, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... amount of good among those placed under his charge, the full extent of which can never be known in this world. While on duty at the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia he persuaded the men to give up their grog rations and sign a pledge of total abstinence, and when executive officer on the Cumberland he did the same thing with its crew. He was a voluntary chaplain and gave a religious address on the berth deck every Sunday evening to ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... very few indeed being aware of it, he removed from the eyes and knowledge of men by superadding other garments, because he sought glory not from man, but from God. Even then the man of virtue entering upon the justifications of God, began to be more complete in abstinence, more frequent in watching, longer in prayer, more anxious in preaching. The pastoral office intrusted to him by God, he executed with so great diligence, as to suffer the rights neither of the clergy nor of the Church to ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... which moves you to laugh so? Sir, said he, I was telling them that these devilish Turks are very unhappy in that they never drink one drop of wine, and that though there were no other harm in all Mahomet's Alcoran, yet for this one base point of abstinence from wine which therein is commanded, I would not submit myself unto their law. But now tell me, said Pantagruel, how you escaped out of their hands. By G—, sir, said Panurge, I will not lie to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... first hour of the discovery of his love. Her near presence gave him exquisite pleasure; but, save when she needed his assistance in some practical matter, he refused to indulge himself by passing much time in her society. Abstinence still remained his rule of life. But just now, strong with the mystic strength of his late ministrations, and perceiving her troubled state, he permitted himself to remain ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... tears in pieces and conceals that holy doctrine which the goddess collects, compiles, and delivers to those who aspire after the most perfect participation in the divine nature. This doctrine inculcates a steady perseverance in one uniform and temperate course of life, and an abstinence from particular kinds of foods, as well as from all indulgence of the carnal appetite, and it restrains the intemperate and voluptuous part within due bounds, and at the same time habituates her votaries to undergo those austere and rigid ceremonies which their religion obliges ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... susceptible of evidence and probabilities which do not, and cannot, apply to the latter. A savage people forced, as it were, into a school of circumstances, and gradually in the course of generations taught the unity of God, first and for centuries merely as a practical abstinence from the worship of any other,—how can the principles of such a system apply to Christianity, which goes into all nations and to all men, the most enlightened, even ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... there since the ancient banishment of the Buddhists. "I take refuge in Buddha! I take refuge in religion! I take refuge in Truth!" The Colorado doctor (Hartmann) pledged observance of the Five Precepts (pansala): abstinence from theft, lying, taking life, intoxicating drink, adultery. All of this has profoundly impressed the Buddhist world, but that is a world of humble people. It remains to be seen whether Theosophy, which has hitherto shown an affection for titles ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... of joining the Total Abstinence," said Devilsdust; "ever since I read Stephen Morley's address it has been in my mind. We shall never get our rights till we leave off consuming exciseable articles; and the best thing to begin ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... slope of a sequestered valley, lulled by the tinkling bells of the flock and the piping of a shepherd from a rock hard by. The pious chant of pilgrims, passing on their way to Rome, wakens his slumbering conscience, and bids him expiate his guilt by a life of abstinence and humiliation. His meditations are interrupted by the appearance of the Landgrave of Thuringia, his liege lord, who is hunting with Wolfram von Eschinbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, and other minstrel-knights ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... importation of negro slaves and of spirituous liquors; but the salutary interdict was soon nullified in the interest of the crops and of the trade with the Indians. Dr. Hopkins "inculcated, at a very early day, the duty of entire abstinence from intoxicating liquids as a beverage."[206:1] But, as in the conflict with slavery, so in this conflict, the priority of leadership belongs easily to Wesley and his itinerants. The conference of 1783 declared against permitting the converts "to make spirituous liquors, sell and drink ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the blue-stockings—the blue rubs off—and the least shade might ruin you with some people. If you were married, I should introduce you to that set with pleasure, for they entertain me vastly, and it is a great privation to me this winter—a long fast; but even this abstinence from wit I can endure for your sake, my dear Caroline—you are my first object. If you would take the bel esprit line decidedly—Talents you have, but not courage sufficient; and even if you had, you are scarce old enough: with your beauty ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... spiritual guardian appeared and took the direction and control of their subsequent lives. San-ge-man in his first trial fasted seven days, and on the next he tasted food, having been reduced to extreme debility by his long abstinence, during which his mind became exceedingly elevated. In this exaltation his spiritual guide appeared to him. He was the spirit of the serpent who rules in the centre of the earth, and under the dark and mighty waters. This spirit revealed to him his future destiny, and promised him his guardianship ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... mere mortification of the body; they must, in addition, be attacked on their own ground and conquered by steady cultivation of the mental habits which oppose them; by universal benevolence; by the return of good for evil; by humility; by abstinence from evil thought; in short, by total renunciation of that self-assertion which is the essence of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Republicans, mostly Germans in the large cities, regarded this legislation as an attempt to interfere with their habit of drinking beer, which they regarded as a harmless beverage. On the other hand, the disciples of total abstinence were opposed to the "Scott" law as a license to sell and drink intoxicating liquors, which license, they alleged, was wrong and against public policy. They were for prohibition outright; they regarded the tax law as a covenant with ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... where for a hundred years, there was not the slightest admixture of foreign blood, increased delicacy with each generation setting it farther and farther apart from the always grosser and coarser type in Old England. Puritan abstinence had much to do with this, though even for them, heavy feeding, as compared with any modern standard was the rule, its results being found in the diaries of what they recorded and believed to be spiritual conflicts. Then, as now, dyspepsia often posed as a delicately susceptible temperament, and ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... is no more important than renunciation; and the first virtue that we who do not wish to be bores must practise is abstemiousness of self. I know it is hard, but I do not mean total abstinence. A man who tried to converse without his I's would make but a blind stagger at it. This short and handsome word (as Colonel Roosevelt might have said) is not to be utterly discarded without danger ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... example. The philosopher, Franklin, who reached a great age, for a considerable portion of his life kept entirely to a vegetable diet; and Abernethy, a name yet more familiar in our ears, has left us this maxim, that "a vegetable diet and abstinence from fermented liquors tends more than anything else to tranquillize the system."—(vide the Abernethian Code.) Another popular and scientific writer of the present day makes a similar confession, which coming from such an unexpected quarter carries weight: "Although professedly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... as he wrote, for observe what follows: "D'Artagnan s'assit alors pres de la fenetre, et, cette philosophie de Planchet lui ayant paru solide, il y reva." In a man who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much zeal for negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge entirely mean and partly impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not near his heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of frugality which is the armour of the artist. Now, in the "Vicomte," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inward imprinted law of holiness and righteousness, which did without more rules direct and determine him to that which is in itself good, it pleased the Lord to prescribe and impose a positive law unto him, to command him abstinence from a thing neither good nor evil, but indifferent, and such a thing as of itself he might have done as well as made use of any other creature. There was no difference between the fruit which was discharged him, and the fruit of the rest of the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... should think half a yard deep. He drew the beer from a large hogshead, and offered us some in a glass. It looked very clear, but, on tasting, I found it so exceedingly bitter that it struck me there would be small virtue for me in abstinence. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... his eyesight that had embarrassed Mr. Gladstone for several months now made abstinence from incessant reading and writing necessary, and he was ordered to travel. He first settled with his sister at Ems (August 15th), whither the proofs of his book with Hope's annotations followed, nor did he finally get rid of the burden ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... need. Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms: Consider what you first did swear unto, To fast, to study, and to see no woman; Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young, And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you you have vow'd to study, lords, In that each of you have forsworn his book, Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look? For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, Have found the ground of study's excellence ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... monseigneur, dit-il ensuite aux gens, je le verrai achever son souper." Le poulet fut apporte; non seulement le cardinal regarda comme une marque evidente de sante de souper deux fois, sur l'ordonnance de Chirac, l'apotre de l'abstinence, mais encore il fut en mangeant de ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday."—"Rest ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... fireplace, the stained wall bore certain singular ornaments. These were five coloured cards, such as are signed by one who takes a pledge of total abstinence; each presented the signature, 'Maria Candy,' and it was noticeable that at each progressive date the handwriting had become more unsteady. Yes, five times had Maria Candy promised, with the help of God, to abstain,' &c. &c.; each time she was in earnest. But it appeared ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... remarks entirely to the question of abstinence from food. The other supernatural gifts, the possession of which is claimed, would, if considered, have extended the limits of this little volume beyond the bounds which were deemed expedient. At some future time I may be tempted to discuss them. In ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt Has always struck me as extremely curious. The Greek mind must have had some vital fault, That they should stick to liquors so injurious - (Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt) - And ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... before, Caradoc could never have withstood that terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had armored his body ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... triumph truth, and her fame virtue. Her arms are from antiquity and her coat full of honour, where the title of grace hath her heraldry from heaven. She makes a walk of war and a sport of danger, an ease of labour and a jest of death: she makes famine but abstinence, want but a patience, sickness but a purge, and death a puff. She is the maintainer of war, the general of an army, the terror of an enemy, and the glory of a camp. She is the nobleness of the mind and the strength of the body, the life of hope and the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and for ever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... explained in every detail. Night and day they drank in Holy Writ, from all pulpits they gave forth Holy Writ, with Holy Writ they enriched immense volumes, with most faithful commentaries they unfolded the sense of Holy Writ, with Holy Writ they seasoned alike their abstinence and their meals, finally, occupied about Holy Writ they arrived at decrepit old age. And if they also frequently have argued from the Authority of Elders, from the Practice of the Church, from the Succession of ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... generally arise from an undue quantity of food, which passing undigested into the bowels, they are thus irritated and disturbed. This may be cured by abstinence alone. The same state of things may be caused by the food not being prepared fresh at every meal, or even from the nursing-bottle or vessel in which the food is given not having been perfectly clean. In this case weak chicken-broth, or beef-tea ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... passive, moods; in the hours when it is doing, not thinking. Sooner or later all its thinking which has any reality in it passes on into action. The emotion, passion, thought, impulse, which never gets beyond the subjective stage, dies before birth; and all those philosophies which urge abstinence from action would cut the plant of life at the root; they are, in the last analysis, pleas for suicide. Men really live only as they freely express themselves through thought, emotion, and action. They get at the deepest truth and enter into the deepest relationships ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Bunker Hill oration, 1825, xxiii; esteem for Henry J. Raymond, xxiv; the image of the British drum-beat, xxix; power of compact statement, xxxi; protest against Mr. Benton's Expunging Resolution, xxxi; arguments against nullification and secession unanswerable, xxxiii; moderation of expression, xxxv; abstinence from personalities, xxxvi; libelled by his political enemies, xxxvi; use of the word "respectable," xl; and Calhoun in debate, xliii; as a writer of State papers, xliv; as a stump orator, xlv; a friend of the laboring man, xlvi; compared with certain ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... restoring the plank at the bottom. Through this accident, some of our biscuit had become injured by the salt-water. This was equally divided among the several boats' crews. Food and water, meanwhile, with our utmost economy, rapidly failed. Our strength was exhausted, not by abstinence only, but by the labours which we were obliged to employ to keep our little vessels afloat amidst the storms which repeatedly assailed us. One night we were parted in rough weather; but though the next day we fell in with one of our companion-boats, we never saw or heard any ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... kip at two-up, and staked his last shilling more readily than the first. It was always the last shilling that was going to turn the scale and make his fortune. Well, he would try his luck again unknown to Pinkey, arguing with the blind obstinacy of the gambler that after his abstinence fate would class him as a beginner, the novice who wins a sweep with the first ticket he buys, or backs the winner at a hundred to one because he fancies ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... could make. Even the whisky itself gave her little relief; it seemed to scald both stomach and conscience, and she vowed never to take it again. But alas! this time is never the time for self-denial; it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence! Yet the struggles after betterment that many a drunkard has made in vain, would, had his aim been high enough, have saved his soul from death, and turned the charnel of his life into a temple. Abject as he is, foiled and ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Liberation Society since its formation; a warm advocate of the Peace Society, of the United Kingdom Alliance; the inaugural meeting of which he attended at Manchester. He was one of the founders of the Congregational Total Abstinence Association; and has always been a warm supporter of the ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... loss of it, next with the prospect of a crooked leg, but he bore cheerfully the most excruciating torture in having it straightened by a series of painful experiments, and in no long time he recovered his activity. In the army he showed his strength of will by rigid abstinence from drinking and gambling, no easy feat in those days; and he learned by his father's example to control all extravagance and to live contentedly on a small allowance. His earliest enthusiasm among books was for Plutarch's Lives, the favourite reading of so many great commanders. ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... The consequence of this abstinence from spirits is, that these Western nations improve and increase rapidly; while, on the contrary, the Eastern tribes, in close contact with the Yankees, gradually disappear. The Sioux, the Osage, the Winnebego, and other Eastern tribes, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... taste again the joys of the Metropolis. The skipper, leaning on the wheel, was in the midst of a hot discussion with the mate, who was placing before him the hygienic, economical, and moral advantages of total abstinence in language of ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Though no one ever heard its holy name;— FAST ev'ry Friday—Saturday the same, Since Sunday followed, consecrated day; Then Monday came:—still he'd abstain from play; Each morning find excuse, but solemn feasts Were days most sacred held by all the priests; On abstinence, then, Richard lectures read, And long before the time, was always led By sense of right, from dainties to refrain: A period afterward would also gain; The like observed before and after Lent; And ev'ry feast had got the same extent; ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... substratum which is lacking, The unshorn hair and the abstinence from wine were the signs of consecration to God, which might often fail of reaching the deepest recesses of the will and spirit, but still was real, and gave the point of contact for the divine gift of strength. Samson's strength depended ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a sin, the world a fleeting show, man fallen and lost, death the only certainty, judgment inevitable, hell everlasting, heaven hard to win, ignorance is acceptable to God as a proof of faith and submission, abstinence and mortification are the only safe rules of life—these were the fixed ideas of the ascetic mediaeval Church. The Renaissance shattered and destroyed them, rending the thick veil which they had drawn between the mind of man and the outer world, and flashing the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... at the long last will expel whatsoever opposeth itself. While Alec felt that he must do everything to please Mr Cupples, he, on his part, felt that all the future of the youth lay in his hands. He forgot the pangs of alcoholic desire in his fear lest Alec should not be able to endure the tedium of abstinence; and Alec's gratitude and remorse made him humble as a slave to the little big-hearted man whom he had injured ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... one of us deliver another; the redemption of the soul is more precious than so, Psalm xlix. 7, 8. Nor is there any thing we can do for ourselves that will avail here; all our prayers, tears, whippings, fastings, vows, alms-deeds, purposes, promises, resolutions, abstinence from some evils, outward amendments, good morality and civility, outward religiousness, yea, and if it were possible, our keeping of the whole law, will not help us out of this pit. And we may weary ourselves in such exercises ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... legislators and priests of the East. In Egypt, Syria, and even the southern parts of Greece, although both white and delicate, it is so flabby and surcharged with fat, that it disagrees with the strongest stomachs. Abstinence from it in general was, therefore, indispensable to health under the burning suns of Egypt and Arabia. The Egyptians were permitted to eat it only once a year,—on the feast of the moon; and then they sacrificed ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... hither must be sent As awful guides of heavenly government; To teach you penance, fasts, and abstinence, To punish bodies ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... be ranked as a great virtue. He could not take a glass of wine without the trivial fact being announced all over the country as indisputable proof that he was an habitual drunkard, though the most remarkable characteristic of his speeches is their temperance,—their "total abstinence" from all the intoxicating moral and mental "drinks" which confuse the understanding and mislead the conscience. He could not borrow money on his note of hand, like any other citizen, without the circumstance being trumpeted abroad as incontrovertible evidence that Nick Biddle had ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... ruler of Shere Ali's Afghanistan; Candahar and Herat had both come to him, and that without very serious exertion. He continues to reign quietly, steadfastly, and firmly; and there never has been any serious friction between him and the Government of India, whose wise policy is a studied abstinence from interference in the internal ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of sleep, the most precious of all things. Add to this the waste of health, spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy, abstinence from pleasure, over-hasty old age, untimely death, and the like; so highly does this wise man value the approbation of one or two blear-eyed fellows. But how much happier is this my writer's dotage who never studies for anything but puts in writing whatever ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... Him, received no answer at all. Jesus' lips were opened in witness but never in complaint or remonstrance. No doubt, the prophecy would have been as really fulfilled though there had been no such majestic silences, for its substance is patient endurance, not mere abstinence from speech. Still, as with other events in His life, the verbal correspondence with prophetic details may help, and be meant to help, to bring out more clearly, for purblind eyes, the true fulfilment. So we may meditate on the wonder and the beauty of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren |
