Restraint

“ That ceremonial restraint, preceding other forms of restraint, continues ever to be the most widely-diffused form of restraint, we are shown by such facts as that in all intercourse between societies, civilized, semi-civilized, or barbarous, as well as in all intercourse between members of each society, the decisively governmental actions are usually prefaced by this government of observances. ”

“ It is sometimes expedient to use restraint even in good desires, lest through unseasonable effort thou art distracted of mind; lest by thy want of self-government thou beget a scandal unto others; or again, being thwarted by others and resisted, thou become suddenly confounded, and so fall. ”

“ It is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can reason finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are basely chosen; but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the higher creature, and betters the lower creature: and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect,—from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust,—the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. ”

“ The young men have seen their father put no restraint upon his passions. Why should they put restraint on theirs? How can he command them when he has not commanded himself? And yet self-restraint is what they, above all men, need. Upstart princes—the sons of a shepherd boy—intoxicated with honours to which they were not born; they need the severest discipline; they break out into the most frantic licence. What is there that they may not do, and dare not do? ”

“ For if you exercise restraint in the doing of good, you will commit a great sin; but if you exercise restraint, so as not to do that which is evil, you are practising great righteousness. Restrain yourself, therefore, from all iniquity, and do that which is good." "What, sir," say I, "are the evil deeds from which we must restrain ourselves?" ”

“ I have been too much accustomed to self-indulgence, to bear restraint, and should it ever be imposed by a master's hand, my rebellious spirit would break the bonds of duty, and assert its independence. ”

“ It is not the difference between ease and restraint, or even that more striking still, between sweet and sour tempers in the chief or chiefs of the establishment; it is a thousand times more vital than either. ”

“ This mode of representing the inconveniences of restraint as light and insignificant, was a kind of sophistry in which he delighted to indulge himself, in opposition to the extreme laxity for which it has been fashionable for too many to argue, when it is evident, upon reflection, that the very essence of government is restraint; and certain it is, that as government produces rational happiness, too much restraint is better than too little. ”

“ And if restraints, however named, and through whatever apparatus of means exercised, are one in their action upon men, it must happen that those who are patient under one kind of restraint, are likely to be patient under another; and conversely, that those impatient of restraint in general, will, on the average, tend to show their impatience in all directions. ”

“ I have never been able to understand how men could endure any restraint which they were able to throw off, I mean an unjust restraint, which does not necessarily result from the nature of man, such as sickness or death, or from the nature of society, such as law and order, but which one set of men have exercised over another, from arbitrariness, avarice or hard-heartedness, and which the others have borne out of stupidity, denseness or cowardice. ”

“ Anticipating, therefore, that many existing forms of restraint will have become obsolete because unnecessary, we may very fairly ask ourselves whether, in an improved moral and intellectual atmosphere, it will not have been found advisable to abolish other restraints and requisitions as a directly remedial measure. ”

“ If we instanced the self-restraint in which so many pass their lives from day to day, it might perhaps be answered that there is a persistent idea of duty, or love of reputation, or fear of social stigma, the repression of which would be more painful than the restraint it puts upon other impulses. ”

“ But to be restrained in things not affecting their good, by their mere displeasure, developes nothing valuable, except such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint. If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. ”

“ What painful restraint—what constant effort to struggle against the strongest impulses are habitually practiced elsewhere, and by other classes? And they must be practiced, unless greater evils would be encountered. ”

“ The principal objects which human punishments have in view, are undoubtedly restraint and example: restraint, or removal, of an individual member, whose vicious habits are likely to be prejudicial to the society. ”

“ A merciless despot, who had never known the need for restraint in all these years, he was doomed by ironic fate to practise restraint in the very moment when his feelings had reached their most violent intensity. ”

“ Thus we find all the evidences of precisely that principle which goes to rear a great people—the belief that restraint is necessary, and part of the art of life, and that in order to have one group of advantages, another group must be sacrificed. ”

“ The new scenes and occupations in which they are suddenly and abruptly placed, like the transplanting of a tree, make them pine and suffer for a time, until restraint becomes a habit, and in both body and mind the convict becomes a new man. ”

“ You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his Restraint which is honourable to man, not his Liberty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is honourable even in the lower animals. A butterfly is much more free than a bee; but you honour the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for orderly function in bee society And throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honourable. ”

“ The removal of restraint is to him a license to laziness; and the hope of reward, or the cravings of nature, will only induce him to labor sufficiently to supply these for immediate and limited relief. ”

“ The very implement of rule and restraint, whereby all the rest was managed and held in order, has become precisely the frightfulest immeasurable implement of misrule; like the element of Fire, our indispensable all-ministering servant, when it gets the mastery, and becomes conflagration. Discipline we called a kind of miracle: in fact, is it not miraculous how one man moves hundreds of thousands ”

“ Let the Stoic insist, not mainly but exclusively, on the limit, the restraint, as that which should be encouraged and enforced, and you obtain a system of thoroughgoing asceticism, a system of penance and mortification of the flesh. ”

“ If the superior man prosecute his measures (in such circumstances) , there will be evil.
IX. The name Hsiâo Khû is interpreted as meaning 'small restraint.' The idea of 'restraint' having once been determined on as that to be conveyed by the figure, it is easily made out that the restraint must be small, for its representative is the divided line in the fourth place ”

“ So that though restraint, utter and unrelaxing, can never be comely, this is not because it is in itself an evil, but only because, when too great, it overpowers the nature of the thing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws of which that nature is itself composed. ”

“ And with respect to restraint and confinement: whoever will consider the restraints from fear and shame, the dissimulation, mean arts of concealment, servile compliances, one or other of which belong to almost every course of vice, will soon be convinced, that the man of virtue is by no means upon a disadvantage in this respect. ”

“ Lastly, I want to call attention to the self-restraint which was shown by our followers on the night of the 13th, after we had been arrested. Our rule has always been to be patient, exercise self-restraint, show our so-called superiors that we are not hysterical; to use no violence, but rather to offer ourselves to the violence of others. ”

“ Conventional restraint often, no doubt, produces dwarfed and defective human nature. I suppose that if souls could be put under a microscope, the undeveloped rudiments of almost everything would be discovered. ”

“ Constrain refers almost exclusively to moral force, restrain frequently to physical force, as when we speak of putting one under restraint. To restrain an action is to hold it partially or wholly in check, so that it is under pressure even while it acts; to restrict an action is to fix a limit or boundary which it may not pass, but within which it is free. To repress, literally to press back, is to hold in check, and perhaps only temporarily, that which is still very active; it is a feebler word than restrain; to suppress is finally and effectually to put down ”

“ If we perform our Karma for the sake of Yajna only, we perform it unselfishly.
4. As discrimination is useful in realising the real self, so restraint is necessary to put down the acquired self. The tendencies of the acquired self, if left to themselves, prompt men to ever recurring actions, which again produce their own effects, some of which develop into fresh tendencies or strengthen the pre-existing tendencies. So restraint is to be constantly practised. The object of restraint is to free the mind from thoughts of the object world and to fix it on the real self, Âtmâ. ”

“ But the ignoring of the immense value of restraint as an element in character is complete; and in the case of many whose choice is slowly and doubtfully made in those younger years when the desire for life in its fullness of experience is strongest, and the wisdom of knowledge of life in its effects is weakest, the advice to obey impulse at all costs, to throw doubt and authority to the winds, and "live my life and have my day," is of dubious utility. ”

“ Public policy therefore requires a continuance of the restraint, however painful to the individual. If there be one case which admits of relaxation less than another, it is where injuries of the head have produced the insanity. ”

“ As experience of the social effects of action ripens, and as the social conscience is awakened, the conception of injury is widened and insight into its causes is deepened. The area of restraint is therefore increased. ”

“ Lack of restraint is failure to construct a properly-working hierarchy. That is a very simple example. Less easy to analyse but equally vicious, are the innumerable cases in which some sort of equilibrium is only attained not by a free interaction of dominant and subordinate parts, but by repression. Conflicts arise, which persist, either in an open form or in the subterranean regions of the unconscious. ”

“ This conscious relinquishment of immediate and special good to gain distant and general good, while it is a cardinal trait of the self-restraint called moral, is also a cardinal trait of self-restraints other than those called moral—the restraints that originate from fear of the visible ruler, of the invisible ruler, and of society at large. ”

“ Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint
And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint. ”

“ And it is clear that if, after repeated experiences of the moral discomfort he has felt from witnessing the unhappiness indirectly caused by some of his acts, he is led to check himself when again tempted to those acts, the restraint is of like nature. ”

“ Some things we know of them, that their action for example is largely one of restraint, of inhibition—that, in part at least, they act like the brakes on a machine, powerful brakes that can arrest the headlong course of primitive impulse. ”

“ The contemptuous brutality with which he shot these rough words at her and then turned away proved a far more effective mode of treatment than the courteous composure he had shown at the beginning of the interview; for self-restraint is a quality little understood or practised by women of her class and their companions. ”

“ Impediments of various kinds. 'Lay aside every weight'—not only sins, but even right things that hinder. Occupations, pursuits, affections, possessions, sometimes have to be put away altogether; sometimes but to be minimised and kept in restraint. ”

“ But this measure, though often tried, is always so far from being effectual, that it seems greatly to increase the number of desertions, perhaps because the young men despise the idea of restraint of any kind. ”

“ Do what one might, inconsequent paraphernalia, eatables, small articles, would leap out and roll away, and one had the greatest difficulty in exercising sufficient restraint upon the overwhelming inclination to follow head first. ”

“ All associated life is regulated by a system of restraints; but restraint implies self-control, and self-control is directly opposed to fatalism. Let a criminal plead that he could not help committing a certain crime ”

“ But, while this feat may be said to have established a record never subsequently lowered, there is no doubt that almost every day in modern times men and women are performing similar and scarcely less impressive miracles of self-restraint. ”

“ We can afford to exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it. ”