Countee Cullen Quotes

The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions

Patience means restraining one's inclinations.

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.

The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.

I wasn't blessed with the natural ability to rein myself in.

Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.

Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.

In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man.

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

A man's reaction to his appetites and impulses when they are roused gives the measure of that man's character. In these reactions are revealed the man's power to govern or his forced servility to yield.

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.

Got to fight to control the violent side, every day and night.

It is a fact that the majority of a man's griefs comes about through lack of self-control.

In that power of self-control lies the seed of eternal freedom.

The practice of patience guards us against losing our presence of mind. It enables us to remain undisturbed, even when the situation is really difficult. It gives us a certain amount of inner peace, which allows us some self-control, so that we can choose to respond to situations in an appropriate and compassionate manner, rather than being driven by our disturbing emotions.

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom.

Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.

The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they we are lost.

Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor.

Who contains himself goes seldom wrong.

Vain indeed is all overweening pride in the conquest even of the entire universe if one has not conquered one's own passions.