Francis Atterbury Quotes

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.

Self-restraint is the very keystone of the ethics of vow-taking.

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

To the totality of purposes of the perfect Law there belong the abandonment, depreciation, and restraint of desires in so far as possible.

If I wanted to do wrong, I could not.

Do not follow vain desires; for verily he who prospers is preserved from lust, greed and anger.

It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.

Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul.

Self-control is one mark of a mature person; it applies to control of language, physical treatment of others, and the appetites of the body.

Those in middling circumstances, have less temptation—they are inclined by habit and the company with whom they associate, to set bounds to their passions and appetites—if this is not sufficient, the want of means to gratify them will be a restraint—they are obliged to employ their time in their respective callings—hence less substantial yeomanry of the country are more temperate, or better morals and less ambition than the great.

We all have to recognize, no matter how great our strength, we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.

The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There's not one of them which won't make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it isn't. If you leave out justice you'll find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity" and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

In its primary signification, all vice, that is, all excess, brings on its own punishment, even here. By certain fixed, settled and established laws of Him who is the God of nature, excess of every kind destroys that constitution which temperance would preserve. The debauchee offers up his body a "living sacrifice to sin.

VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

Self-control is one of the most exhilarating of pleasures.

Only deeds give strength to life, only moderation gives it charm.

He cannot be vertuous that is not rigorous.

Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.

Love increases through righteous restraint and decreases through impulsive indulgence.

We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline.

In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men.

In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color.