Anita Shreve Quotes

I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.

Terrible is the fight put up by the senses. Fight bravely! Conquer them you must.

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.

There is a raging tiger inside every man whom God put on this earth. Every man worthy of the respect of his children spends his life building inside himself a cage to pen that tiger in.

There are those who say that temptation can be barricaded beyond the door. The ones who think that stray desires can be driven out of the heart like the moneychangers from the temple. Maybe they can, if you patrol your weak points day and night, don't look, don't smell, don't dream.

Self-Control is the very essence of character. To be able to look a man straight in the eye, calmly and deliberately, without the slightest ruffle of temper under extreme provocation, gives a sense of power which nothing else can give. To feel that you are always, not sometimes, master of yourself, gives a dignity and strength to character, buttresses it, supports it on every side, as nothing else can. This is the culmination of thought mastery.

We usually know what we can do, but temptation shows us who we are.

They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.

Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it.

What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.

Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character.

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.

Self-control is the only possible road to character development

Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.

Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

If thou wouldst conquer thy weakness, thou must never gratify it.

Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that is his heart which is capable of responding to it.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.