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Touch not; taste not; handle not.—Bible: Colossians, 2:21.
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Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs and flaming hair,
But Desire gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there.—Blake, Gnomic Verses
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Abstinence is approved of God.—Chaucer
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Call'd to the temple of impure delight,
He that abstains, and he alone, does right.
If a wish wander that way, call it home;
He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.—Cowper, The Progress of Error
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Abstaining is favorable both to the head and the pocket.—Horace Greeley
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Against diseases here the strongest fence
Is the defensive virtue, abstinence.—Robert Herrick, Abstinence
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The more a man denies himself, the more shall he obtain from God.—Horace
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Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.—Samuel Johnson
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By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigor to resolution.—Samuel Johnson
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Abstinence is the surety of temperance.—Plato
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Self-abstention, if only it be pure enough, gives a stripped beauty to the soul. There lived in me, as doubtless in many, an unchallenged ascetic who was only too glad to be put to the test.—Jule Romains, Lucienne
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To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicureanism of reason.—Rousseau
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Refrain tonight,
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.—Shakespeare, Hamlet
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Abstinence is the great strengthener and clearer of reason.—Robert South
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And must I wholly banish hence
These red and golden juices,
And pay my vows to Abstinence,
That pallidest of Muses?—William Watson, To a Fair Maiden Who Bade Me Shun Wine
