SELF-DENIAL

Related Subjects: Asceticism, Fasting

1. Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life. The lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere. It is no more necessary to be self-denying to be a Christian, than it is to be an artist, or an honest man, or a man at all in distinction from a brute. Of all joyous experiences there are none like those which spring from true religion.—H. W. BEECHER
   

2. Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.—AMBROSE BIERCE, Epigrams
   

3. Every personal consideration that we allow, costs us heavenly state. We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure.—EMERSON
   

4. Whoever will labor to get rid of self, to deny himself according to the instructions of Christ, strikes at once at the root of every evil, and finds the germ of every good.—FENELON
   

5. Self-abnegation, that rare virtue, that good men preach and good women practice.—O. W. HOLMES
   

6. The more a man denies himself, the more he shall obtain from God.—HORACE
   

7. One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers in which idle people indulge themselves.—CARDINAL NEWMAN
   

8. Teach self-denial, and make its practice pleasurable, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.—SCOTT
   

9. Self denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.—BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for Revolutionists
   

10. When you give, take to yourself no credit for generosity, unless you deny yourself something in order that you may give.—HENRY TAYLOR
    

11. Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.—OSCAR WILDE