Quotes About Self-control

That it's not what they do that bothers us: that's a problem for their minds, not ours. It's our own misperceptions. Discard them. Be willing to give up thinking of this as a catastrophe . . . and your anger is gone. How do you do that? By recognizing that you've suffered no disgrace. Unless disgrace is the only thing that can hurt you, you're doomed to commit innumerable offenses—to become a thief, or heaven only knows what else.

Not to be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions; nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation; nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or furiously to launch out as it were, nor ever to want employment.

In the mind that is once truly disciplined and purged, thou canst not find anything, either foul or impure, or as it were festered: nothing that is either servile, or affected: no partial tie; no malicious averseness; nothing obnoxious; nothing concealed.

A very ridiculous thing it is, that any man should dispense with vice and wickedness in himself, which is in his power to restrain; and should go about to suppress it in others, which is altogether impossible.

In the ring, our opponents can gouge us with their nails or butt us with their heads and leave a bruise, but we don't denounce them for it or get upset with them or regard them from then on as violent types. We just keep an eye on them after that. Not out of hatred or suspicion. Just keeping a friendly distance. We need to do that in other areas. We need to excuse what our sparring partners do, and just keep our distance—without suspicion or hatred.

Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You

And that might be applied to him which is recorded of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess.

And that might be applied to him which is recorded of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess. But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.

How can I either be hurt by any of those, since it is not in their power to make me incur anything that is truly reproachful?

How can I either be hurt by any of those, since it is not in their power to make me incur anything that is truly reproachful? or angry, and ill affected towards him, who by nature is so near unto me?

And I observed that he had overcome all passion for boys;

This may ever be my comfort and security: my understanding, that ruleth over all, will not of itself bring trouble and vexation upon itself.

Put from you the belief that 'I have been wronged', and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.

For in those things that properly belong unto the mind, she cannot be hindered by any man

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgement about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgement now. But if anything in your own disposition gives you pain, who hinders you from correcting your opinion? And even if you are pained because you are not doing some particular thing that seems to you to be right, why do you not rather act than complain?

Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed.

The pride that prides itself on freedom from pride is the hardest of all to bear.

22. No te dejes arrastrar por el torbellino de las pasiones; antes bien, a todo ímpetu del instinto, ofrece lo que de justicia le toca; ante toda aprensión de la fantasía, conserva la facultad de pensar.

Never esteem of anything as profitable, which shall ever constrain thee either to break thy faith, or to lose thy modesty; to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to dissemble, to lust after anything, that requireth the secret of walls or veils.

It is instructive to compare the Meditations with another famous book, the Imitation of Christ. There is the same ideal of self-control in both. It should be a man's task, says the Imitation, 'to overcome himself, and every day to be stronger than himself.

Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion.

Two characteristics shared by gods and men (and every rational creature): i. Not to let others hold you back. ii. To locate goodness in thinking and doing the right thing, and to limit your desires to that. 35.

FROM MY GRANDFATHER VERUS I LEARNED GOOD MORALS AND THE government of my temper.

Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. To praise without bombast; to display expertise without pretension.