Quotes About Willpower

Don't say no when you want to say yes.

Temptations will no more prevail over a contented man, than a dart that is thrown against a brazen wall.

To will and to run are mine, but they will cease to be mine unless God brings me His continual aid.

God wants us to walk in obedience—not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self.

We may feel that a particular habit 'isn't too bad,'but continually giving in to that habit weakens our wills against the onslaughts of temptation from other directions.

The place to start controlling the cravings of our physical appetites is to reduce our exposure to temptation.

Muscles are the way the body obeys the mind.

Desire is the only justification for obedience.

It is essential [...] that discipline should not be practiced like a rule imposed on oneself from the outside, but that it becomes an expression of one's own will; that it is felt as pleasant, and that one slowly accustoms oneself to a kind of behavior which one would eventually miss, if one stopped practicing it.

Zum Selbstmord neige ich nicht, denn ich verspüre nichts von jenem Tatendrang, der andere nötigt, so lange mit dem Kopf gegen die Wand zu rennen, bis der Kopf nachgibt.

We find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death.

It could be done, because it had to be done

freedom is dangerous. If you follow it too willingly it threatens to pull you into the air; if you give it up too wholly, you become a prisoner of necessity. The safest thing is to toe the mark of what is socially possible.

I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.

Hunger is good discipline.

What kind of a hand is that,' he said. 'Cramp then if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good.

It made him feel as a wound does that you think you cannot bear. But you can bear anything, he thought.

I wonder why he jumped, the old man thought. He jumped almost as though to show me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he thought. I wish I could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will and my intelligence.

Remember that he who conquers himself is greater than the one who conquers a city.

he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city

But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people ... and for once it would be written by some one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all.

You were fighting against exactly what you were doing and being forced into doing to have any chance of winning

Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will and my intelligence.

Direi só o que tu desejares que eu diga e só farei o que tu desejares que euu faça, e tu unca quererás outra, pois não? --------------------- Catherine em O Adeus Às Armas Ernest Hemingway