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Abstinence   /ˈæbstənəns/   Listen
Abstinence

noun
1.
The trait of abstaining (especially from alcohol).  Synonym: abstention.
2.
Act or practice of refraining from indulging an appetite.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Abstinence" Quotes from Famous Books



... flourished many centuries ago, and who foretold the coming of the pale-faces, though long before the foot of our forefathers had touched the western continent. He warned his people with prophetic fervor of the coming encroachments of the white man, and the necessity of their abstinence from a poison drink he would bring to craze and destroy them. He told them that he should die and be buried out of their sight, but that THEIR DESCENDANT WOULD SEE HIM—AGAIN. J.P. FOSTER, State Agent and ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.

... inwardly. Thirsts were on his Celtic soul that longed for dalliance with the Orient; but he well knew that tone of voice, and sadly resigned himself to abstinence. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... careful attention to the gastro-intestinal tract in many cases of epilepsy. Planned diet and regular bowels are very helpful. He rejects treatment of the condition by surgery of the head, either by trephining or by incisions, or cauterization. Regular exercise, baths, sexual abstinence are the foundation of any successful treatment. It is probable that we have returned to Alexander's treatment of epilepsy much more nearly than is generally thought. There are those who still think that remedies ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... worse, Marilda is the most literal-minded girl. Fasting was quite a new mind to her, for she never realises what she does not see; and she got Clem into a corner, where I heard him going on, nothing loth, about days of abstinence, out of Mr. Fulmort's last catechising, I should think; and ended by asking what Cousin Edward did, so that I fully expected that I should find her eating nothing, and that I ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the Cathedral School. He studied theology in France, in the seminaries of Meximieux and Hyeres. During the Civil War he was chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota Regiment. In 1875 he was consecrated bishop of Saint Paul. In 1869 he founded the first total-abstinence society in Minnesota and has lectured much on temperance in the United States and Great Britain. The following extracts, used by special permission, are from his lecture delivered before the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion, New York, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the gospel to the Kentish Saxons. He attracted their attention by the austerity of his manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected himself, by the abstinence and self-denial which he practised: and having excited their wonder by a course of life which appeared so contrary to nature, he procured more easily their belief of miracles, which, it was pretended, he wrought for their conversion [r]. Influenced by these motives, and ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... whatever transacted during last week, and even the duty remains without fluctuation. In this state of inactivity the effects of the Metropolitan Total Abstinence movement was a topic of interest to the trade. As it appears that nearly 70,000 persons took the pledge, the consumption of malt liquor must seriously diminished, and the demand for Hops will consequently be very considerably decreased. ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... such rules of library administration as concern the readers, or the public. The rule of silence, or total abstinence from loud talking, should be laid down and enforced. This is essential for the protection of every reader from annoyance or interruption in his pursuits. The rule should be printed on all readers' tickets, and it is well also to post the ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... Stedman saw him, a silver band, with the inscription,—"True to the Europeans." In dealing with wrongs like these, Mr. Carlyle would have found the despised negroes quite as ready as himself to take the total-abstinence pledge against rose-water. ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... some books for his belief, and his reasons have been made so plausible that a number of persons have coincided with him. Cowan says the efficacy of the treatment has been established in many instances, a fact that he can prove by ample testimony. During his long abstinence from food he had numerous letters and telegrams from Dr. Dewey, encouraging him in the undertaking. When asked why he had fasted, Cowan explained that for years he had suffered from chronic nasal and throat catarrh which would not yield to medical treatment. ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... carry off great numbers. They are very temperate, robust, and good soldiers. Their religion, whereof Mahomet was the author, comprehends six general precepts, viz. circumcision, prayer, fasting, alms, pilgrimage, and abstinence from wine. Friday is their most solemn day of the week, which they distinguish only by being longer at prayer on that than other days. They observe an extraordinary fast on the ninth month, which whoever breaks is certainly ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... with regard to the use of spirited beverages, usually implies abstinence, which is certainly not democratic if it is applied in a formally imposed prohibition without any local option. Abstinence by choice, however, is purely a matter of self-determination. But in an area where drinking was a commonly accepted practice, such as the frontier, ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... command. It seeks for love in us, and love can never be had by compulsion. Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. Any joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... were also shot occasionally, and they found immense numbers of wild cranberries, strawberries, rasps, and other berries, besides small spring onions; so that, upon the whole, they fared well, and days of abstinence were more than compensated by ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne

... other voluntary Additions, insomuch that in a good Year, for such he accounts those in which he has been able to make greater Bounties than ordinary, he has given above twice that Sum to the Sickly and Indigent. Eugenius prescribes to himself many particular Days of Fasting and Abstinence, in order to increase his private Bank of Charity, and sets aside what would be the current Expences of those Times for the Use of the Poor. He often goes afoot where his Business calls him, and at the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... wife; and on the part of domestic happiness, we urge upon our readers, all, to prove their constancy of attachment, by mutual kind offices and delicate attentions, in health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow; by abstinence from all that may wound; and by an honest preference of home enjoyments ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... the temper of readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests, or men of education amongst Mr O'Connell's followers, but even the peasantry, must in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a general habit of self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any individual insult These were not the causes of public indignation. Not what Mr O'Connell said, but what he did, kindled the general wrath. To see him marching and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... foot that must never be cured, fasting much and passing sleepless nights, depriving himself of comfortable clothing and nutritious food, he felt that he was imitating the saints and martyrs who were the ideals of his sickly boyhood, and in recompense of abstinence he was happy. He was kind-hearted and charitable to all, but most strict in his enforcement of religious duties. It never occurred to him to doubt his absolute right to flog his neophytes for any slight negligence in matters of the faith. His holy desires trembled within ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... untouched by worldliness, or by the baser part of passion, as in the first hour of the discovery of his love. Her near presence gave him exquisite pleasure; but, save when she needed his assistance in some practical matter, he refused to indulge himself by passing much time in her society. Abstinence still remained his rule of life. But just now, strong with the mystic strength of his late ministrations, and perceiving her troubled state, he permitted himself to remain and pace ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... much more closely identified with England than with the Continent. His sceptical, practical intellect led him to heap scorn on Hales and his followers and to plunge into audacities of speculation which cost him long seclusions in his convent and enforced abstinence from writing and study. In his war against the Aristotelians, the intrepid friar upheld recourse to experiment and observation as superior to deference to authority, in language which stands in strange contrast to the traditions of the thirteenth ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... profession fell out of fashion then, and there are now comparatively few mendicant dervishes to be seen. Those that still wear the 'ragged robe' do not all appear to follow the rules of poverty, self-denial, abstinence, and celibacy. One there was, a negro from 'darkest Africa,' who attached himself as a charity-pensioner to the British Legation in Tehran, and was to be seen in all weathers, snow and sunshine, fantastically dressed, chattering ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... had been summoned to the tower were Egyptians and Syrians, and among the former particularly there were many who, being already inured to abstinence and penance in the service of the old gods in their own country, now as Christians had selected as the scene of their pious exercises the very spot where the Lord must have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... almost always in a chair. But he did not, on this account, allow himself any recreation, or cease to eat fish alone during Lent and fast days. It might be more accurately said that he but seldom ate at all, so great was his abstinence—which he, moreover, sought to conceal, feigning, with much dissimulation, that he ate of everything, when in reality it was a mere pretense of eating. He was very contrite; severe toward himself, but gentle to others; most exact in obedience, but very reserved ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... extinguished; and, consigned to a mere repose of limb, in which the eye and heart shared not, the inferior soldiery pressed their rude couches with spirits worn out by a succession of painful excitements, and frames debilitated, by much abstinence and watching. It was an hour at which sleep was wont to afford them the blessing of a temporary forgetfulness of endurances that weighed the more heavily as they were believed to be endless and without fruit; but sleep had now apparently been ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What if we do divide up? in ten years there would be rich and poor men ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... learned good morals and the government of temper. From my great-grandfather to know that on education one should spend liberally. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds but from evil thoughts; and, further, simplicity in way of living. To the gods I am indebted for having good grandparents, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... through formulas unheard there since the ancient banishment of the Buddhists. "I take refuge in Buddha! I take refuge in religion! I take refuge in Truth!" The Colorado doctor (Hartmann) pledged observance of the Five Precepts (pansala): abstinence from theft, lying, taking life, intoxicating drink, adultery. All of this has profoundly impressed the Buddhist world, but that is a world of humble people. It remains to be seen whether Theosophy, which has hitherto shown an affection for titles ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... once had taken the total-abstinence pledge. When visiting a friend, he was invited to take a drink, but declined, on the score of his pledge; when his friend suggested lemonade, which was accepted. In preparing the lemonade, the friend pointed to the brandy-bottle, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... women sat cross-legged, after the fashion of Indians. Hare found it hard to adapt his long legs to the posture, and he wondered how these men, whose legs were longer than his, could sit so easily. It was the crown of a cheerful dinner after hours of anxiety and abstinence to have Snap Naab speak civilly to him, and to see him bow his head meekly as his father asked the blessing. Snap ate as though he had utterly forgotten that he had recently killed a man; to hear the others ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... developed during the forties into something like a modern system with Gilmore's High School as a capstone. By that time they had also not only several churches but had given time and means to the organization and promotion of such as the Sabbath School Youth's Society, the Total Abstinence Temperance Society and the Anti-Slavery Society. The worthy example set by the Negroes of this city was a stimulus to noble endeavor and significant achievements of Negroes throughout the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. Disarming their enemies of the weapon ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... and the hunter-state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a common blessing; when a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like a special providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the blessing of food—the act of eating—should have had a particular expression of thanksgiving annexed ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... substance of what he says. A gouty man must be moderate, not too abstinent, so as to get weak. One meat is best; mixtures are bad. A milk diet "has prevailed," only bread being added, but it must be rigid and has its risks. He seems to have kept a nobleman on milk a year. Also there must be total abstinence from wine and all fermented liquors. Early bed hours and early rising are for the gouty. Then there come wise words as to worry and overwork. But, above all, the gouty must ride on horseback and exercise afoot. As to the ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... by the Egyptians for preventing illness was attention to regimen and diet; "being persuaded that the majority of diseases proceed from indigestion and excess of eating;" and they had frequent recourse to abstinence, emetics, slight doses of medicine, and other simple means of relieving the system, which some persons were in the habit of repeating every two ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... of consternation, and perhaps each knew she might be thankful that he did not come himself instead of sending, and yet feared that the abstinence was a proof more of incapacity than ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... thankfulness that they never knew the sins of gambling, drunkenness, fornication, or adultery. In all these cases abstinence has been, and continues to be, liberty. Restraint is the noblest freedom. No man can affirm that self-denial ever injured him; on the contrary, self-restraint has been liberty, strength and blessing. Solemnly ask young men to remember this when temptation and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... thoughts and desires; other religions usually attach to external and ceremonial observances greater weight than to morality itself;—this is singularly simple in its rites; they for the most part consist of little else;—this exhibits a singular silence and abstinence in relation to the future and invisible; they amply indulge the imagination and fancy, and are full of delineations calculated to gratify man's most natural curiosity;—this takes under its special patronage those virtues which man is least likely to love or cultivate, and which men ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... curious fancies, or as Louise called them, her "raptures," had now for some time had the fancy to take only a glass of cold water and a piece of dry bread for her breakfast. On account of this abstinence, Henrik now jested, and Petrea answered him quite gaily; Louise, on the contrary, took up the matter quite seriously, and thought—as many others did—that this whim of Petrea's had a distant relationship to folly; and folly, Louise—the sensible Louise—considered the most horrible ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... in watching gardening, as in watching many other sports, is that you may be drawn into it yourself. This you must fight against. Your sinecure standing depends on a rigid abstinence from any of the work itself. Once you stoop over to hold one end of a string for a groaning planter, once you lift one shovelful of earth or toss out one stone, you become a worker and a worker is an abomination in the eyes ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... chastity. If chastity is merely a fatiguing effort to emulate in the sexual sphere the exploits of professional fasting men, an effort using up all the energies of the organism and resulting in no achievement greater than the abstinence it involves, then it is surely an unworthy ideal. If it is a feeble submission to an external conventional law which there is no courage to break, then it is not an ideal at all. If it is a rule of morality imposed by one sex on ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of the doctor's prescription we will not give at length. To some of his ordinances Sir Roger promised obedience; to others he objected violently, and to one or two he flatly refused to listen. The great stumbling-block was this, that total abstinence from business for two weeks was enjoined; and that it was impossible, so Sir Roger said, that he should ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... things. As they grew up, and entered upon the world for themselves, all the older apprentices fell into habits of dissipation, and finally sunk into the drunkard's grave. But the little boy, at whose abstinence they used to scoff, grew up a sober and respectable man, engaged in business for himself, and a few years ago, was worth a hundred thousand dollars, and had in his employ one hundred and ninety men, none of whom used ardent ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... Miss Doyle. I have had a lesson [he looks at Nora significantly] that I shall not forget. It may be that total abstinence has already saved my life; for I was astonished at the steadiness of my nerves when death stared me in the face today. So I will ask you to excuse me. [He collects himself for a speech]. Gentlemen: I hope the gravity of the peril through which we have all passed—for I know that ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... time that he had the severe illness (post, under Oct. 17, 1765, note). In Feb. 1766, Boswell found him no longer drinking wine. He shortly returned to it again; for on Aug. 2, 1767, he records, 'I have for some days forborne wine;' and on Aug. 17, 'By abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief' (Pr. and Med. pp. 73, 4). According to Hawkins, Johnson said:—'After a ten years' forbearance of every fluid except tea and sherbet, I drank one glass of wine to the health of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, So that they uttered the word 'Liberty!' Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose History was ever stained as his will be With national and individual woes?[gt] I grant his household abstinence; I grant His neutral virtues, which most ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... sung, which made the room crack with laughter. How strange they seemed to Pen! He could only see Bows. In an extinct volcano, such as he boasted that his breast was, it was wonderful how he should feel such a flame! Two days' indulgence had kindled it; two days' abstinence had set it burning in fury. So, musing upon this, and drinking down one glass after another, as ill-luck would have it, Arthur's eyes lighted upon Mr. Huxter, who had been to the theater, like himself, and, with two or three comrades, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... assured her, as its sparkling drops fell into the glass, of a purity and flavour "that even his friend Mr. Carlisle would not refuse to close his lips upon." Eleanor felt faint and weary, and she knew Mr. Carlisle's critical accuracy; but she recollected at the same time Mr. Rhys's cool abstinence, and she put ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... one of the most important steps of his life in espousing the cause of total abstinence. Having taken up this movement, he threw his whole energy into it, and from that time down to the day of his death he was a consistent temperance man, and a strong advocate of the principle of total abstinence. It was, perhaps, this strong advocacy of the cause of temperance, more ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... he wished first to be the better of the serious annoyances besetting him. For some similar reason he had not written; he wished to feast on her surprise. 'And I had my reward,' he said, as if he had been the person principally to suffer through that abstinence. 'I found—I may say it to you, Mr. Beamish love in her eyes. Divine by nature, she is one of the immortals, both in appearance ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... been extolled as a land where there is no profanity. This is true and she should have the credit for this abstinence. And one never feels like giving her this credit more than when he returns from that country to this and is compelled to endure the coarse profanity which pervades our streets ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... undertook to lecture us on the terrible evils of rum drinking and the crying need of promoting the great cause of total abstinence. We were all total abstainers. There was not a drop of rum on the Farm. In the exhilarating life of our community there was no call for stimulants. We had none and wanted none. Rum was a curse in civilized society ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... "the limits of vice and virtue are wretchedly ill-defined. Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence." ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... never hard to make savage converts observe a day of rest; they are generally used to keep certain seasons already, and, as Mr. Eliot's Indians honestly said, they do so little work at any time that a weekly abstinence from it comes very easily. At Nonantum, indeed, they seem to have emulated the Pharisees themselves in their strictness. Waban got into trouble for having a racoon killed to entertain two unexpected guests; and a case was brought up at public lecture of ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... glands, and these substances exert a specific influence in promoting the development of the secondary sexual characters. The same theory has been invoked to account for the alleged ill effects of sexual abstinence, it being suggested that the reabsorption of glandular products properly destined for excretion may give rise to toxic effects.[49] If it be assumed that the testicles can secrete substances upon the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... laid in Ebn Ezra's was hot and nervous, the eyes that drank in the friendship of the face which had seen two Claridges emptying out their lives in the East were burning and famished by long fasting of the spirit, forced abstinence from the pleasures of success and fruition-haunting, desiring eyes, where flamed a spirit which consumed the body and the indomitable mind. The lips, however, had their old trick of smiling, though the smile which greeted Ebn Ezra Bey had a melancholy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... philosophy must take that would save itself from dangerous error. The philosopher must start from the complete living totality of man, formed as he is, not of flesh merely, a Falstaff—or of spirit merely, a Simon Pillarman and Total Abstinence Saint—but of both flesh and spirit, body and soul, in his healthy and normal condition. For this reason clearly—true philosophy is not merely sense-derived and material like the French philosophy of Helvetius, nor altogether ideal like that of Plotinus, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... religious abstinence from inflicting death on any creature, are accustomed, after securing a venomous snake, to enclose it in a basket of woven palm leaves, and to set it afloat on a river. During my residence in Ceylon, I never heard of the death of a European which was ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... labour, diet, physic, abstinence, Subs. 1. To withstand the beginnings, avoid occasions, fair and foul means, change of place, contrary passion, witty inventions, discommend the former, bring in another, Subs. 2. By good counsel, persuasion, from future miseries, inconveniences, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... probabilities which do not, and cannot, apply to the latter. A savage people forced, as it were, into a school of circumstances, and gradually in the course of generations taught the unity of God, first and for centuries merely as a practical abstinence from the worship of any other,—how can the principles of such a system apply to Christianity, which goes into all nations and to all men, the most enlightened, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... his eyesight that had embarrassed Mr. Gladstone for several months now made abstinence from incessant reading and writing necessary, and he was ordered to travel. He first settled with his sister at Ems (August 15th), whither the proofs of his book with Hope's annotations followed, nor did he finally get rid of the burden ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... "Aweel, moderation's best, but abstinence better than naething. Nae man shall deprive me o' my leeberty, but I'll tempt nae man to gie up his." And he actually put the whisky-bottle by ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... truth, and her fame virtue. Her arms are from antiquity and her coat full of honour, where the title of grace hath her heraldry from heaven. She makes a walk of war and a sport of danger, an ease of labour and a jest of death: she makes famine but abstinence, want but a patience, sickness but a purge, and death a puff. She is the maintainer of war, the general of an army, the terror of an enemy, and the glory of a camp. She is the nobleness of the mind and the strength ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... I will take my TUPPER'S Proverbial Philosophy and my glass of water, and I will daily address all my friends on the subject of total abstinence from everything that cheers, whether it inebriates or not. And I will now close this evening's lecture by an appeal to the audience now present, to take warning by me, and never drink a drop of lager-beer. Think, my friends, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various

... clear as a gong. "I'm no teetotaller. Abstinence is the rule I enforce, by precept and example. While men are men they'll drink strong liquor. But as long as they are not fool-men and brute-men, they can be trusted not to lap when they're on duty. Those I find untrustworthy I mark down, and they will be dealt with rigorously. You understand ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... This," and his finger then he rais'd, "Is Buonaggiuna,—Buonaggiuna, he Of Lucca: and that face beyond him, pierc'd Unto a leaner fineness than the rest, Had keeping of the church: he was of Tours, And purges by wan abstinence away Bolsena's eels and cups of muscadel." He show'd me many others, one by one, And all, as they were nam'd, seem'd well content; For no dark gesture I discern'd in any. I saw through hunger Ubaldino ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... undue neglect of sustenance. But it is to be noted that the central virtue, so to speak, as justice, sobriety, chastity, is for all persons on all occasions: the more excellent side-virtue, as liberality, or total abstinence, is for special occasions and special ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... on the contrary, with the same useful qualities, have a patience, a perseverance, an abstinence, which peculiarly fit them for the cultivation of new countries; too great encouragement therefore cannot be given to them to settle in our colonies: they make better settlers than our own people; and at the same time their numbers are an acquisition of real strength where they fix, without weakening ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... has appeared on the earth so far, we find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence—but without its being possible to determine with certainty which is cause and which is effect, or IF any relation at all of cause and effect exists there. This latter doubt is justified by the fact ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to the first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I address myself to the company.—I believe in temperance, nay, almost in abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I thought fit to take ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... command the Hellespont and intercept the Latin succors of Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence; and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice, he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, who expected that in a few moments the fire would be ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... furnish a flour of such fine quality that the whole produce of the island is sent to Spain for the pastry and confectionery of the cities, while the Majorcans import a cheap, inferior kind in its place. Their fortune depends on their abstinence from the good things which Providence has given them. Their pork is greatly superior to that of Spain, and it leaves them in like manner; their best wines are now bought up by speculators and exported for the fabrication of sherry; and their oil, which might be the finest in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... Moreover, I am unwilling to take any step which could be interpreted as attempting to deprive the local and private observatories of honours which they have so nobly earned. And, finally, in this act of abstinence, I am desirous of giving an example of adhesion to one principle which, I am confident, might be extensively followed with great advantage to astronomy:—the principle of division of labour.'—Discoveries of small planets were now not infrequent: but the only ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... by the bridegrooms on these occasions, I regret that I am not in a position to hazard an opinion. Polygamy is almost unknown, a second wife being seldom taken during the lifetime of the first. Since it is to the expense attendant upon this luxury that such abstinence is probably to be attributed, it really reflects great credit upon the Bosnian Benedicts that the meal-sack has been so seldom brought into play,—that ancient and most expeditious Court of Probate and Divorce in ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... used abstinence and stopped myself from telling her that she could never have done it, for she was quite solemn, and I thought we were getting at something. I hoped, too, that we should get it quickly, for a tired ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... Often he sunk into fits of melancholy, and, gentle as he was, the tenderness of his wife and friends could not soothe his distempered feelings; it was necessary to abandon him to his own thoughts, till, after a long abstinence from his neglected works, in a lucid moment, some accident occasioned him to return to them. In one of these hypochondria of genius, after a long interval of despair, one morning at breakfast with ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... mode of life. He took my reproof in good part; and you will be pleased to hear that when he was at length restored to health, he became quite a new man—scrupulously faithful in discharge of his duty, sober to abstinence, and cheerfully obedient to orders. He has had a narrow escape from death, and is, I trust, thankful to God that he was not cut off suddenly in his mad career. He is grateful to me for the service I rendered him—says, indeed, that I ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... than any other that the vast army of drunkards and opium-eaters is recruited. The hypochondriacs belong to the class so well described by that brilliant specimen of them, Dr. Johnson,—those who can practise ABSTINENCE, but not TEMPERANCE. They cannot, they will not be moderate. Whatever stimulant they take for relief will create an uncontrollable appetite, a burning passion. The temperament itself lies in the direction of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... poor chap, he did give up golf on the first of August, if not forever at least for the longest period of abstinence in his career on the links. On our last afternoon over the velvet together, before he left for the steamer that was to take him into the maelstrom, he paid little attention to his game, and a surprised and, I fancied, even a slightly disappointed caddie ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... general use with Christians ("Evidences," pp. 154, 155). Paley does not state, until later, that the "follower of Justin Martyr" turned heretic and joined the Encratites, an ascetic and mystic sect who taught abstinence from marriage, and from meat, etc.; nor does he tell us how doubtful it is what the Diatessaron—now lost—really contained. He blandly assures us that it is a harmony of the four Gospels, although ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... au plus tot vos forces. Faites tout de suite servir monseigneur, dit-il ensuite aux gens, je le verrai achever son souper." Le poulet fut apporte; non seulement le cardinal regarda comme une marque evidente de sante de souper deux fois, sur l'ordonnance de Chirac, l'apotre de l'abstinence, mais encore il fut en mangeant de la ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann

... the village green where the soldiers were refreshing themselves at what once had been the Elmwood Arms, for though not given to excess, total abstinence formed no part of the discipline of the Puritans; and one of the men started forward, and seizing hold of ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... A month's abstinence may not be a very severe penance for an island on which the rainfall averages 124 inches per year; but when vegetation suffers from the cruelty of four almost rainless months, promises and slights amount to something more than mere discourtesy. How genuine the thanksgiving to the soft ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... by force, we deprecate any effort by the Federal Government to coerce in any form the said States to reunion or submission, as tending to irreparable breach, and leading to incalculable ills; and we earnestly invoke the abstinence from all counsels or ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... that admirable training of the intellect. Hence, up to the date of the introduction of the Universal Colour Bill, the Circles had not only held their own, but even increased their lead of the other classes by abstinence from the popular fashion. ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... which moves you to laugh so? Sir, said he, I was telling them that these devilish Turks are very unhappy in that they never drink one drop of wine, and that though there were no other harm in all Mahomet's Alcoran, yet for this one base point of abstinence from wine which therein is commanded, I would not submit myself unto their law. But now tell me, said Pantagruel, how you escaped out of their hands. By G—, sir, said Panurge, I will not lie to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... and the habit back, social usage is frowning on the stomach, hips and other heretofore not unadmired evidences of robust nutrition. Temperance, not to say total abstinence, has become de rigueur among the ladies. My dinner companion nibbles her celery, tastes the soup, waves away fish, entree and roast, pecks once or twice at the salad, and at last consumes her ration of ice-cream with obvious satisfaction. If there is a duck—well, she makes an exception ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... altogether discard the theological terms of Hinduism when they adopted a new religion. For instance, pusa,[37] abstinence, fasting (Sansk. upavsa), is used to express the annual fast of the Muhammadans during the month Ramzan. Heaven and hell also retain ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell

... enforced abstinence from society, or from the unwelcome nature of his thoughts, Robert Balfour was always disinclined to be alone. His expeditions with Charley in search of pleasure had been, though he did not find pleasure, more agreeable to him than the being left to his own resources; and now this was more ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... when he spoke to me, and was trying to guess what the sauce was flavoured with. It occurred to me suddenly that I might have broken in upon some sort of private anniversary, a day which Ascher and his wife observed as one of abstinence. There was, I could scarcely fail to notice it, a sense of ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... bad emblematical personification of the Winter season. Having dispelled the cold, he turned eagerly to the smoking mess which was placed before him, and ate with a haste and an apparent relish, that seemed to betoken long abstinence from food. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... behaved well? Upon my word, I believe I shall have to stand treat to my own abstinence, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... flushed involuntarily. His face had cleared remarkably in the past week of abstinence, and through the fair skin the ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... Greek sculpture and Venetian painting, art dignifies the actual mundane life of man; but Christ, in the language of uncompromising piety, means everything most alien to this mundane life—self-denial, abstinence from fleshly pleasure, the waiting for true bliss beyond the grave, seclusion even from social and domestic ties. "He that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me," "He that taketh not his cross and followeth me, is not worthy of me." ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... the famines which almost invariably followed them, were far more destructive to human life than in our own days, and deaths by violence, whether at the hands of the state or as the result of personal enmity, were of daily occurrence in all lands. Under these conditions abstinence on the part of woman from incessant child-bearing might have led to almost the same serious diminution or even extinction of her people, as in the savage state; while the very existence of her civilisation depended ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... virtue. He could not take a glass of wine without the trivial fact being announced all over the country as indisputable proof that he was an habitual drunkard, though the most remarkable characteristic of his speeches is their temperance,—their "total abstinence" from all the intoxicating moral and mental "drinks" which confuse the understanding and mislead the conscience. He could not borrow money on his note of hand, like any other citizen, without the circumstance being trumpeted abroad as incontrovertible evidence that Nick Biddle had ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... the first to battle against the defects of a voice that was both harsh and weak, a defective pronunciation, and above all, the depression of his physical powers, exhausted as they were by too severe abstinence. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... buckboard the fates laid plans, spun yarns, and rearranged many things. Hartigan opened his heart and life. He told of his mother, of his happy childhood; of his losses; of his flat, stale, unprofitable boyhood; of Bill Kenna and his "word as a man"; of his own vow of abstinence, kept unbroken till he was eighteen. He gave it all with the joyous side alone in view, and when a pathetic incident intruded, the pathos was in the things, not in the words of the narrator. The man had a power of expression ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Review. The point upon which they were all agreed was that alcohol is injurious to children, and if the boy has been accustomed from his early youth to do without it, and, as he grows up, remains a total abstainer, there is no question that his abstinence will prove a great safeguard; though I cannot go as far as some of my abstaining friends, who seem to regard the use of alcohol as the root of what must, in the nature of things, be one of the strongest primal passions ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... his mind. She shewed me it was a noble task, and communicated to me her own divine ardour. Yes, Oliver; I came from her, with a warmed and animated heart; participating all her zeal. The most rigid, the most painful of all abstinence was demanded from me; but should I shrink from a duty because I pity or because I love myself? No. Such pusillanimity were death to virtue. I left her, while my thoughts glowed with the ardour of emulating her heroism; ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... eyes, the ears, the taste, the smell, were all so many corrupt traitors in conspiracy to poison her. Physical beauty of every sort was a snare, a Circean enchantment, to be valiantly contended with and straitly eschewed. Hence they preached, not moderation, but total abstinence from all pursuit of physical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... before after night fall, and on the Sunday in the early morning. As soon as Carandas had verified the arrangement and constant practice of these gallant diversions, he determined to wait for a day when the lovers would meet, hungry one for the other, after some accidental abstinence. This meeting took place very soon, and the curious hunchback saw the boatman waiting below the square, at the Canal St. Antoine, for the young priest, who was handsome, blonde, slender, and well-shaped, like the gallant and cowardly hero of love, so celebrated by Monsieur Ariosto. Then ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... good; to flaccid, crushed natures of this type, every belief would seem authoritative, every religion holy and divine. Fifteen hundred years ago these nuns would have made excellent vestal virgins, watchful and resigned. What they need is abstinence, prohibitions, thwartings, things contrary to nature. By conforming to most rigorous rules, they consider themselves suffering beings who deserve heavy recompense; and the Carmelite or Trappist sister, who macerates herself ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... was presented that evening to the Hon. Neal Dow, of Maine, the father of the "Prohibitory Law." Mr. Barnum made a very vivacious and vigorous address. In after years he delivered several addresses in behalf of Total Abstinence in my church, and they were admirable specimens of close argument, most pungently presented. He indulged in but few witticisms or amusing stories; for, as he well said, "The Temperance Reform was too SERIOUS a matter for ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... he was invited to succeed Dr. Lindsay as President of the Students' Total Abstinence Society, and, as no absolute pledge was exacted from the members, he willingly agreed to do so. From this time his influence was more and more definitely enlisted on behalf of Total Abstinence, and in 1874 ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... there; and his pupil Michelozzo made the figure of Faith. In the same church, opposite to this work, there is a wooden figure by the hand of Donato of S. Mary Magdalene in Penitence, very beautiful and excellently wrought, showing her wasted away by her fastings and abstinence, insomuch that it displays in all its parts an admirable perfection of anatomical knowledge. On a column of granite in the Mercato Vecchio there is a figure of Abundance in hard grey-stone by the hand of Donato, standing quite by itself, so well ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... by the said Philosopher. The first is called Courage, which is sword and bridle to moderate our boldness and timidity in things which are the ruin of our life. The second is Temperance, which is the law and bridle of our gluttony and of our undue abstinence in those things requisite for the preservation of our life. The third is Liberality, which is the moderator of our giving and of our receiving things temporal. The fourth is Magnificence, which is the moderator of great expenditures, making and supporting ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... good-nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and thirty; and how the heart that had deemed itself able to resign was chafed at the appearance of compulsion. She felt that the right was the same as ever; but it was an increased struggle to maintain the resolute abstinence from all that could bind Colin to her, at the moment when he was most likely to be detached, and it was a struggle rendered the more trying by the monotony of a life, scarcely varied except by the brainwork, which she was ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... protested, and he got on his warpaint, couched his lance, and ran a bold tilt against total abstinence and the Red Ribbon fanatics. It raised a fine row among the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... our noble dead have not died in vain. With martyred Belgium for an object lesson, it is the duty of every British girl to make every possible sacrifice to keep those unspeakable Huns out of our islands. I appeal to you all to use the utmost economy and abstinence, and voluntarily to give up some of the things that you like. Remember you will be helping to win the war. There is a rationing pledge on the table near the door, and I ask every girl to sign it and to wear the violet ribbon that will be given her. It is the ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... brethren are already assembled, to pray to God for blessings on their protector, and pardon to their enemies. No one, I believe, will be able to object to us under our new establishment, that the extent of our revenues will be inconsistent with our vows of poverty and abstinence; but, let us strive to be thankful to God, that the snare of temporal abundance ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... which engenders melancholy, and most likely will never change. I always made my food congenial to my constitution, and my health was always excellent. I learned very early that our health is always impaired by some excess either of food or abstinence, and I never had any physician except myself. I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much; the last may cause indigestion, but the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... generally known, that if we deprive an animal of food, the weight of its body diminishes during every moment of its existence. If this abstinence is continued for some time, the diminution becomes apparent to the eye; all the fat of the body disappears, the muscles decrease in firmness and bulk, and, if the animal is allowed to die starved, scarcely ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... much bewitched as she, sir. He has told her, and more than her, that were it not for the laughter and ill-will of his barons, he would join her in the same abstinence. But all this is child's play to the friar's ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... still be had. The Christian Taught by the Church Services. Cloth, 2s. 6d. Original. Ditto ditto, calf, gilt edges, 4s. 6d. Original. The separate Parts may still be had. Penitential Reflections for Days of Fasting and Abstinence. (Tracts for Lent), 6d. Compiled. Rules for the Conduct of Human Life, 1d. Abp. Synge. Ejaculatory Prayers, 2d. A. Cook. Pastoral Address to a Young Communicant, 1/2d. Original. Litanies for Domestic Use, 2d. Compiled. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various

... no grein of Pite sowe: 320 And slouthe kepeth the libraire Which longeth to the Saintuaire; To studie upon the worldes lore Sufficeth now withoute more; Delicacie his swete toth Hath fostred so that it fordoth Of abstinence al that ther is. And forto loken over this, If Ethna brenne in the clergie, Al openly to mannes ije 330 At Avynoun thexperience Therof hath yove an evidence, Of that men sen hem so divided. And yit the cause is noght decided; Bot it is seid and evere ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... eyes shone glassy in the dim rays sent forth by a poor lamp; but she did not reply. She had a gnawing in her stomach, that made her feel faint, and a most earnest craving for nourishing and even stimulating food, the consequence of long abstinence as well as from the peculiarity of her disease. But she did not breathe a word of this to Ellen, who would, she knew, expend for her every cent of the money she was about to receive, if she was aware of the morbid appetite from ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur

... But he began early to think for himself, and this, with the excellent discipline of his wise and sagacious father, caused him to live in advance of those around him. It is not probable that he adopted the principle of total abstinence, and abstained entirely from the use of intoxicating drinks; but he was not in the habit of using it as a ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... broiled fish, while the rest of the girls gathered blueberries in the woods. The cooking must have tasted good to the doctor, for he passed his plate three times for slumgullion and ate so many biscuits he lost count. Hinpoha, too, throwing her vow of abstinence to the winds, ate until she groaned, and while she was clearing away the dishes finished up all that was left of the fudge and the blueberries. The doctor took his leave in the afternoon, declaring he had never eaten anything ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... the air and the exercise in the universe, and the most generous and liberal table, but poorly suffice to maintain human stamina if we neglect other co-operatives—namely the obedience to the laws of abstinence, and those of ordinary gratification. We rise with a headache, and we set about puzzling ourselves to know the cause. We then recollect that we had a hard day's fag, or that we feasted over-bounteously, or that we stayed up very late: at all events we incline to find out the fault, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various

... ever uncompromising in their demand for rainbows, nibbling at the entre' and pushing aside the roast, though often adoring primitive men who gorge on it, but ever in the end rewarding abstinence and thus selecting a race of spiritually-minded men for mates, are after ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... but Wisdom is chiefly an attribute of the Intellect. [Greek: Sophrosynae], which Cicero translates Temperantia, is a very indefinite and ambiguous word, and it admits, therefore, of a variety of applications: it may mean discretion, or abstinence, or keeping a level head. Courage is not a virtue at all; although sometimes it is a servant or instrument of virtue; but it is just as ready to become the servant of the greatest villainy. It is really a quality of temperament. Even ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... plays, which "mightily troubled his mind." He was frequently resolving to abstain from the theatre for four or five months at a stretch, and then to go only in the company of his wife. During these periods of abstinence he was in the habit of reading over his vows every Sunday. But, in spite of all his well-meaning efforts, his resolution was constantly breaking down. On one occasion he perjured himself so thoroughly ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... building!" said he. "That looks like a brewery! Consider the sea of beer they brew there once a month, and then think of your oath of abstinence and ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... 11. Meditation, abstinence in all, the observation of moral duties, gentle thoughts, good deeds and kind words, as good will to all and entire oblivion of Self, are the most efficacious means of obtaining knowledge and preparing for the reception of ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky

... don't do anything won't believe this, and the assertion will make them angry—for a moment. They possess several magic phrases, which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving devils away. The phrases that the good, kind people repeat to themselves and to one another sound like "abstinence," "temperance," "thrift," "virtue." Sometimes they say them backward, when they sound like "prodigality," "drunkenness," "wastefulness," and "immorality." They do not really know the meaning of these phrases, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... after all, enunciation is no more important than renunciation; and the first virtue that we who do not wish to be bores must practise is abstemiousness of self. I know it is hard, but I do not mean total abstinence. A man who tried to converse without his I's would make but a blind stagger at it. This short and handsome word (as Colonel Roosevelt might have said) is not to be utterly discarded without danger of such a silence as would transform ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... has to pass some six or eight of the above-mentioned roadside shanties in his day's ride, and experience has taught him that if he once breaks his accustomed total abstinence, the unwonted stimulant has an overpowering effect upon his brain. Jimmy shakes his head warily as he determines that no earthly consideration will induce him to partake of any liquor until his business is over. His only chance is to avoid temptation; so, knowing that there is the first of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to remuneration founded on the possession of food is remuneration for abstinence, not for labour. If a person has a store of food, he has it in his power to consume it himself in idleness. If, instead, he gives it to productive labourers to support them during their work, he can claim ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... before all things, as the first necessary condition to our happiness; let what will follow. Nothing, as we passionately think, can exceed, or almost equal, the uneasiness that sits so heavy upon us. And because the abstinence from a present pleasure that offers itself is a pain, nay, oftentimes a very great one, the desire being inflamed by a near and tempting object, it is no wonder that that operates after the same manner pain does, and lessens in our thoughts what is future; and ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... at two-up, and staked his last shilling more readily than the first. It was always the last shilling that was going to turn the scale and make his fortune. Well, he would try his luck again unknown to Pinkey, arguing with the blind obstinacy of the gambler that after his abstinence fate would class him as a beginner, the novice who wins a sweep with the first ticket he buys, or backs the winner at a hundred to one because he fancies ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone



Words linked to "Abstinence" :   temperance, sawm, sobriety, teetotalism, fasting, self-control, inhibition, self-discipline, teetotaling, sexual abstention, chastity, celibacy, abstain, suppression, self-denial, abstinent, fast



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