Quotations About Self-Control

Self-control is the ability to make decisions about how and when we express our feelings, and which of our impulses to act on. This is a life-long process which is critical to the healthy development of children and adults.

Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. ~Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence, 1967

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me. ~Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588

How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot. ~Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center. So does a person. ~Norman Vincent Peale

Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address. ~Lane Olinghouse

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. ~Buddha

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely. ~Franklin P. Jones

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to. ~Oscar Wilde

It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back. ~Mick Jagger

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself. ~Pietro Aretino, 10 May 1537

If we resist our passions, it is more because of their weakness than because of our strength. ~François, duc de La Rochefoucauld

For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. ~Friedrich Nietzsche The first attribute that characterizes the greater man from the moron is his thicker layer of inhibition. ~Martin H. Fischer

Go ahead and squander your chi. But I guarantee you heaven isn't in Miss March's pussy.... Heaven is on the other side of that feeling you get when you're sitting on the couch and you get up and make a triple-decker sandwich. It's on the other side of that, when you don't make the sandwich. It's about sacrifice.... It's about giving up the things that basically keep you from feeling. That's what I believe, anyway. I'm always asking, "What am I going to give up next?" Because I want to feel. ~Jim Carrey, from a Michael Fleming interview in the March 2004 issue of Playboy magazine