Rumi Quotes

if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

Chastity works better if you don't keep testing it.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

He who is a slave to his stomach seldom worships God.

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.

We say no to lots of things that would please us. I would like to punch people every now and then, but I don't. I would like to have something for free rather than pay for it. I would like to skip to the front of the line... I don't mean to brush aside the taste of meat, which is a powerful attraction. But its power is not without limit.

If you deprive yourself of something, you're going to want it more.

No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut.

Lust is an appetite that needs to be regulated.

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

So far as I am concerned, I could not be accused of having set eyes, or having wished to set eyes, upon Darius' wife: on the contrary, I have refused even to listen to those who spoke to me of her beauty.

It's not easy not to play.

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

I have always espoused chastity except when one can no longer resist the temptation.

If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.

Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.

Fasting is futile unless it is accompanied by an incessant longing for self-restraint.

Without asceticism, self-indulgence would be insignificant.

...lust is only a sweet poison for the weakling, but for those who will with a lion's heart it is the reverently reserved wine of wines.

Why did she give up wine for Lent? Polly was more sensible. She had given up strawberry jam. Cecilia had never seen Polly show more than a passing interest in strawberry jam, although now, of course, she was always catching her standing at the open fridge, staring at it longingly. The power of denial.

Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either master the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency.

Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn't desire is the hardest thing in the world.

O Master, make me chaste, but not yet!

It is not enough to be abstinent with other people. You also have to be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't - a word that rhymes with congratulate - without lust.

How easy for those who do not bulge to not overindulge!