Quotes About Self-control

But you had a right to be angry." "Yes. But not to hurt those I love, or myself.

She tried to keep her voice steady, but it was pretense, like pretending self-control when something you loved was dead in front of your eyes. They would have to separate here.

Pero se necesita carácter y dominio de sí mismo para ser comprensivo y capaz de perdonar.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

Distrust your first instinctive impression. Our first natural reaction in a disagreeable situation is to be defensive. Be careful. Keep calm and watch out for your first reaction. It may be you at your worst, not your best.

Principle 1 Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

Feliz es sólo el hombre bien templado  que de hoy se hace dueño indiscutido,  que al mañana increparle puede osado:  "extrema tu rigor, que hoy he vivido".

As I look back now I wonder how I was ever able to sell anything. I lost years of my life in scrapping and arguing. I keep my mouth shut now. It pays.

prepare to cultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments'.

I discovered years ago that although I couldn't keep people from criticizing me unjustly, I could do something infinitely more important: I could determine whether I would let the unjust condemnation disturb me.

And with respect to feelings that are inherently injurious and wrong, their strategy is not one of resisting them in the moment of choice but of living in such a way that they do not have such feelings at all, or at least do not have them in a degree that makes it hard to decide against them when appropriate.

Disciplines are activities that are in our power and that enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.

This is the true situation: nothing has power to tempt me or move me to wrong action that I have not given power by what I permit to be in me. And the most spiritually dangerous things in me are the little habits of thought, feeling, and action that I regard as "normal" because "everyone is like that" and it is "only human.

In charting one's course in life, it is important never to forget that many things that cannot be called wrong or evil are nevertheless not good for us.

This "world" is marked by three spiritual dynamics that John identifies as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16).

And we can't all just get along. Rather, we have to become the kinds of persons who can get along. As a major part of this, our epidermal responses have to be changed in such a way that the fire and the fight doesn't start almost immediately when we are "rubbed the wrong way." Solitude and silence give us a place to begin the necessary changes, though they are not a place to stop.

Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings—whether it is anger, fear, sexual attraction, desire for food or for "looking good," the residues of woundedness, or whatever—are typically persons who in their heart of hearts believe that their feelings must be satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of selectively resisting their feelings instead of that of not having them—of simply changing or replacing them.

The cross means the acceptance of limitation on desire. Without establishing this for yourself, there can only be frustration and worse, for you simply cannot satisfy desire.

Can anyone now seriously believe that if people are only permitted or enabled to do what they want, they will then be happy or more disposed to do what is right?

Practice in not speaking can at least give us enough control over what we say that our tongues do not "go off" automatically. This discipline provides us with a certain inner distance that gives us time to consider our words fully and the presence of mind to control what we say and when we say it.

Such planning should include identifying the things in your life that you believe trouble Jesus—impatience, overeating, lying, or whatever it may be for you.

plan for putting to death or mortifying

In people without rock-solid character, feeling is a deadly enemy of self-control and will always subvert it. The mongoose of a disciplined will under God and good is the only match for the cobra of feeling.

We can practice this through spiritual disciplines such as fasting, which can help us stay sweet and strong when we do not get what we want. If we can cheerily give up Twinkies, and peanuts, and steak, and things of that sort for a while, this will bring us to the place where we can say, "Lord, you're quite sufficient for me. If you want to take it away forever, that would be fine.