There is no allurement or enticement, actual or imaginary, which a well-disciplined mind may not surmount. The wish to resist more than half accomplishes the object. – Charlotte Dacre, The Passions, 1811

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

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

An element of abstention, of restraint, must enter into all finer joys. – Vida D. Scudder