Self-Control

Discipline is remembering what you want. – David Campbell

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, 19

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

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours — it is an amazing journey — and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. – Bob Moawad

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

Discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons. – Author Unknown

Everyone must choose one of two pains: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. – Jim Rohn

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

You must admit you have self-control before you can use it. – Carrie Latet

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

And so, Reader, (for it is time to have done with guessing) would I bid you conquer in your warfare against your four great enemies, the world, the devil, the flesh, and above all, that obstinate and perverse self-will, unaided by which the other three would be comparatively powerless. – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically — to say “no” to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.” – Stephen Covey

If we resist our passions, it is more because of their weakness than because of our strength. – François VI de la Rochefoucault