Abstinence

“ As excess in sexual indulgence impairs the generative power, no less injurious may entire abstinence be considered. The due exercise of an organ tends to its perfection, as the neglect or misuse of it, to its impairment. ”

“ A great many are inclined to think of abstinence as representing abstinence from food alone, but it must not be forgotten that as understood in connection with religion it represents abstinence from all the harmful things. For instance, it represents abstinence from sleep when that is being taken to excess, and as a rule any healthy human being above the age of twenty and under sixty who sleeps more than eight hours in the day needs to practice such abstinence. There is literally such a thing as oversleeping and thus accumulating more energy than one has use for. ”

“ Let me advise you, too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social parties and wine are doubtless pleasant, in company with our jolly friends and old boon companions. But with whom can you enjoy the social cup? Truly if you have only Shîr-Ahmed and Hindâi for the companions of your gay hours and the jovial goblet, you cannot find any difficulty in abstinence."
This, Babar felt, was unanswerable. ”

“ The abstinence of the temperate, they are convinced, will accomplish this, and that abstinence it is their business to promote by those means with which the God of truth has furnished them. They believe that such abstinence, instead of being productive of any injury to the community will greatly benefit it; and already there are the fairest prospects of the great objects of such voluntary abstinence being effected, by associations sustaining one another in new habits, to make them reputable and common. ”

“ In the matter of sexual abstinence, for example, the majority of physicians are to-day agreed upon the view that such abstinence in general does no harm; and that those, if any, whose health may be unfavourably influenced by sexual abstinence, constitute at most a very small minority. In my own view, the persons who may suffer from this cause are those affected with hyperæsthesia of the sexual impulse, and in whom the impulse is dominant to such a degree that it interferes with all their alternative activities. ”

“ Great drops of cold perspiration drenched him at the bare thought. The icy waters, the ooze and mud of the river seemed preferable. He could not openly continue his vice in the presence of his family, nor could he conceal it much longer, and the attempt to stop the drug, even gradually, would transform him almost into a demon of irritability and perhaps violence, so frightful is the rebellion of the physical nature against the abstinence essential to a final cure. ”

“ Men of genius, and persons who lead sedentary lives, are more especially benefited by occasional abstinence; as these, from the want of vigorous exercise, and their intense application, are generally the severest sufferers from diseases of repletion. In the observance of the rules of abstinence, due attention must always be paid to the age, strength, constitution, and habit of the patient. ”

“ Being drunk, he knows nothing; whilst the physician, although not drunk, knows well in what drunkenness consists, and what are its predisposing conditions. Similarly there is a difference between knowing the nature of abstinence, and being abstinent or having one's soul detached from the world.—Thus I had learned what words could teach of Sufism, but what was left could be learned neither by study nor through the ears, but solely by giving one's self up to ecstasy and leading a pious life. ”

“ The other group – embracing the majority of male ascetics – curses him because he never leaves them in peace."
Approaching the subject in a more modern and scientific attitude of impartial inquiry, the medical man can produce an imposing list of diseases [1] more or less directly caused by abstinence both in men and in women. ”

“ From which it is manifest, that abstinence from particular kinds of food, especially such as are more pleasing to flesh and blood, and more nourishing to the body, whether continually or for a time, is most agreeable to religion and to the word of God ”

“ I scarcely know how to fast; I shrink from this cross; I behold so few fasting that I excuse myself through the general neglect, or soften the interpretation of Thy words. I desire to amend, to practise abstinence in things allowed, that from things not allowed I may the more easily abstain, that I may have a more docile and obedient will, that in great matters I may the more easily resist the motions of the flesh. ”

“ Absolute continence is abstinence not only from the gratification of the impulse of detumescence concarnatione, but also from that of contrectation, i. e., from mental and tactile caresses and from all other abnormal practices. We must distinguish between chastity and abstinence. Those who are chaste out of fear of venereal infection or for lack of opportunity are not always abstinent. They are just the individuals who are indulging immoderately in mental erethism or even masturbation.
The mere assertion of the patient that he never indulged in unnatural practices does not count. ”

“ Other resolutions have been broken, but after all in such a way that, in cases where I ceased to practice abstinence, I have observed a limit which is indeed next door to abstinence; perhaps it is even a little more difficult, because it is easier for the will to cut off certain things utterly than to use them with restraint. ”

“ In the chapter on Abstinence it is suggested that one of the best things that men and particularly women could practice to advantage from the standpoint of religious abstinence would be abstinence from excessive rest. ”

“ The absence of aliment and the concentration of the faculties of the soul towards one object have been the primary and indispensable conditions of ecstasies and stigmata. As far as abstinence is concerned, it is perfectly compatible, if not with a state of health, at least with the maintenance of life. “The question of abstinence,” says the author, “is the most important, because without it nothing happens. It being well explained, there is no longer anything supernatural in any of the physiological and pathological phenomena of the mystics.” ”

“ Antonyms: Prepositions:
Plants absorb moisture from the air; the student is absorbed in thought; nutriment may be absorbed into the system through the skin.
ABSTINENCE. Synonyms:
Abstinence from food commonly signifies going without; abstemiousness, partaking moderately; abstinence may be for a single occasion, abstemiousness is habitual moderation. Self-denial is giving up what one wishes; abstinence may be refraining from what one does not desire. Fasting is abstinence from food for a limited time, and generally for religious reasons. ”

“ A vow of temporal continency can be a matter of dispensation, as also a vow of temporal prayer or of temporal abstinence. But the fact that no dispensation can be granted from a vow of continency solemnized by profession is due, not to its being an act of chastity, but because through the religious profession it is already an act of religion.
Reply to Objection 3: Food is directly ordered to the upkeep of the person, therefore abstinence from food may be a direct source of danger to the person: and so on this count a vow of abstinence is a matter of dispensation. ”

“ A. The practice of the Church has been different, in this respect, in different ages, according to circumstances; and even in the same age it is not exactly the same in all places, especially with regard to the point of abstinence. In the primitive ages the general rule of abstinence, on fasting days, was to abstain from flesh, and all white-meats that come from flesh, and from wine; and the general rule for the quantity was to take only one meal in four-and-twenty hours, and that not till the evening. ”

“ Abstinence.—The Church makes a distinction between abstinence and fasting. Abstinence is the reduction of food for the sake of self-discipline, while fasting is going without food of any kind as a more severe act of discipline. Abstinence is to be exercised on "Other Days of Fasting" i.e., other than Ash Wednesday and Good Friday which are absolute Fasts. (See FASTS, TABLE OF; also FASTING) .
Acolyte.—A word derived from the Greek, and used to designate one who serves the Priest in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. ”

“ There can be no question that abstinence was a fundamental part of his system, yet certain modern critics—little in sympathy with so practical a manifestation of the higher life, or, indeed, with self-denial of any kind—have sometimes affected either to doubt the fact or to pass it by in contemptuous silence, thus ignoring what for the after ages stands out as by far the most important residuum of Pythagoreanism. ”

“ We know indeed, dearly-beloved, your devotion to be so warm that in the fasting, which is the forerunner of the Lord’s Easter, many of you will have forestalled our exhortations. But because the right practice of abstinence is needful not only to the mortification of the flesh but also to the purification of the mind, we desire your observance to be so complete that, as you cut down the pleasures that belong to the lusts of the flesh, so you should banish the errors that proceed from the imaginations of the heart. ”

“ Any permanent temperance reform, however great emphasis it may lay on a Christian duty of total abstinence, must draw sharply and maintain stoutly the distinction between total abstinence and temperance, between drunkenness and drinking. It must recognize drunkenness to be everywhere and always a sin, drinking to be made so only by the circumstances; temperance to be always and everywhere a duty, total abstinence to be only a means now to be employed for promoting temperance. ”

“ Nothing short of total abstinence can save those who have become the victims of it. In this indulgence, no half way course will ever subdue the disease, or remove the effect of the habit from the system. Total abstinence is the only remedy. If the constitution is not fatally impaired—if organic disease has not taken place, this remedy will prove effectual, and must be adopted, especially in all cases in which the effects are visible, or the consequences cannot fail to be ultimately fatal. ”

“ Total abstinence defies all danger and mocks at consequences. With it, we are safe; without it, in peril.
No man was ever born a drunkard; nor are we born with a natural taste or thirst for alcoholic drinks, any more than we are born with an appetite for aloes, assafœtida, or any other drug or medicine. ”

“ This is because the total abstinence from satisfying personal needs (food, clothing, shelter) destroys that same individual, the same as with the lack of any rest, any property, and any drive; but the abstinence from satisfying sexual desire, the chastity - of one, several, or many people - does not end the human race, which sexual drive is supposed to maintain, because the abstinence of one, several, or many people from sexual relationship does not cause the downfall of the human race. ”

“ The body is chastised by means of abstinence, not only against the allurements of lust, but also against those of gluttony: since by abstaining a man gains strength for overcoming the onslaughts of gluttony, which increase in force the more he yields to them. Yet abstinence is not prevented from being a special virtue through being a help to chastity, since one virtue helps another. ”

“ Observe, we say temperance. Total abstinence is a different thing altogether—an extreme which may warrant and cover abuses as bad as drunkenness itself. No spectacle is more ludicrous than a procession of Tee-totallers. If total abstinence is a virtue hard to win, and accessible only to an inconsiderable minority, the pharisaical ostentation of its vain-glory is not calculated to attract or conciliate the overwhelming majority who feel unable to soar to its sublimity. ”

“ In some cases the abstinence is due to nothing more nor less than acquired impotence, the man's inability to perform the act. In other cases the reason may be found in a previous venereal disease and the man's consequent fear to infect his wife. Consciously or unconsciously the man makes a virtue out of necessity.↑ See Marshall, Quarterly Journal Microscopic Science, Vol. ”

“ But it is a very serious error to suppose that the effort to achieve complete and prolonged sexual abstinence is without any bad results at all, physical or psychic, either in men or women who are normal and healthy. ”

“ We must take into consideration every form and degree of sexual manifestation, normal and abnormal, gross and ethereal. When we do this, even cautiously and without going far afield, sexual abstinence is found to be singularly elusive. ”

“ I anticipate that he will answer thus: "I dispute none: it is not by positive things that your estimate errs, but by negations. It is the absence of all allowance for indispensable items that vitiates the calculation." Very well: but to this, as to other things, we may apply the words of Dr. Johnson—"Sir, the reason I drink no wine, is because I can practise abstinence, but not temperance." Yes: in all things, abstinence is easier than temperance; for a little enjoyment has invariably the effect of awaking the sense of enjoyment, irritating it, and setting it on edge. ”

“ Others say, that abstinence and sobriety free from most diseases, especially catarrhs, coughs, wheesings, giddiness, pain in the head and stomach, sudden death, lethargies, gout and sciatica, an ill digestion being the cause of all these; it also prevents pains in the splene, stone, and gravel, and a dry itch; it makes the body vigorous and nimble, maintains the five senses in a good state, preserveth the memory, quickens the wit; and quencheth all undue lust in mankind; and, in short, all misers, who eat and drink but little, do live long. ”