Quotes About Renunciation

The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them. And: When a man reaches a state where honor and dishonor are alike to him, then he is considered supreme. Strive to gain such a state.

Why was it that our holy men who made a big deal of giving up so many things—comfort, fame, family—couldn't seem to give up their tempers?

made to the other women when I joined them at night. The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them.

The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them.

Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty.

he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life—all that men so painstakingly acquire and guard—if it has any worth has so only by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.

He began to pray, and was obsessed by the fear lest he should die without having done any good in the world; he longed to live, and to live so as to achieve the renunciation of self.

wealth, power, and life—all that men so painstakingly acquire and guard—if it has any worth has so only by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.

self-abnegation

Dead to the world and all its toys! Its idle pomp and fading joys! Jesus, my glory be!

I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book. —William Shakespeare, The Tempest

She'd broken her staff and drowned her book and sworn off magic forever.

Science, I repeat, produced many 'saints,' dedicating their lives with monastic devotion to their discipline-but no notable rebellious martyrs against the political establishment. Yet, as we shall note later, that alienation and renunciation are at last perhaps under way.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in 'renouncing' one's own self, by which I mean making up one's mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being 'happy' or 'unhappy' in the usual meaning of the words.

Renunciar a la libertad es renunciar a la condición de hombre, a los derechos de la humanidad y a sus mismos deberes. No hay indemnización posible para el que renuncia a todo. Semejante renuncia es incompatible con la naturaleza del hombre; y quitar toda clase de libertad a su voluntad, es quitar toda moralidad a sus acciones.

It is possible to renounce everything and attain enlightenment. But most people don't want to renounce; they wish to run away from responsibility and hard work.

For a moment, he thought: I could give up magic for her, but immediately realized how foolish that thought was. Love didn't require that kind of renunciation. True love allowed each person to follow their own path, knowing that they would never lose touch with their Soul Mate.

The whole journey of renunciation, or starting to say yes to life, is first of all realizing that you've come up against your edge, that everything in you is saying no, and then at that point, softening. This is yet another opportunity to develop loving-kindness of yourself, which results in playfulness--learning to play like a raven in the wind.

Every time we are willing to let the story line go, and every time we are willing to let go at the end of the out-breath, that's fundamentally renunciation: learning how to let go of holding on and holding back.

We don't experience the world fully unless we are willing to give everything away.

Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for samsara4 is full of shit.

Even the novice alone can see quickly that a life conducted, temporarily or no, as a simple renunciation of value becomes at best something occluded and at worst something empty: a life of waiting for the will-be-never. Sitting in passive acceptance of (not judgment on) the happening and ending of things.

I'll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, My gay apparel for an almsman's gown, My figured goblets for a dish of wood, My scepter for a palmer's walking staff My subjects for a pair of carved saints and my large kingdom for a little grave.

I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book!