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Asceticism Quotes

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Asceticism Quotes

“The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a Hell.”

EarthReligionPrinciplesHellCreaturesPursueConsistentlyPursuedLiving CreaturesAsceticism
Book:The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
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“A physical shortcoming could produce a kind of mental excess. The process, it seemed, was reversible. Mental excess could produce, for its own purposes, the voluntary blindness and deafness of deliberate solitude, the artificial impotence of asceticism.”

KindPurposeProcessProduceSolitudeExcessArtificialBlindnessDeliberateShortcomingsImpotenceAsceticismDeafness
Book:The end of Utopia: a study of Aldous Huxley's Brave new world
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“The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.”

MenNeedsKindDoeSelfPlaySpiritualFormJoyDifficultTasksDestructionInstinctPrivilegeBurdenExperimentsCrushStrongestCheerfulConquestRecreationLabyrinthAsceticismHardnessDifficult Tasks
Book:The Portable Nietzsche
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“The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater is the store of your estranged being.”

ThinkingBookHouseGreaterDrinkPaintStoresTheatreTreasureDustEtcHallsFenceMothsAsceticism
Book:Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1884
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“The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals.”

LoveHumansDoeEndsSometimesIndividualSinImpossibleWillingBrokenPerfectionEssencePreparedSakeLoyaltyCommitPreparationInevitableFriendlyDefeatedBeing HumanIntercourseAsceticismBroken Up
Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
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“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself." The disciple must say to himself the same words Peter said of Christ when he denied him: "I know not this man." Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that. To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him.”

IfsKnowsMenWaySaidSelfHardChristElementsSuicideSeriesOneselfDenyDenialDeniedPeterIsolatedDiscipleSelf-denialAsceticismMortificationSelf Will
Book:The Cost of Discipleship
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“Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream-the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother. Renunciation is not asceticism. Are all beggars Christ? Poverty is not a synonym for holiness; often the reverse.”

WayWantGivingMindChildrenLongPlayDreamMotherJesusChristPovertyGiving UpPerfectionSakeHolinessAgain And AgainReverseBeggarRenounceRenunciationDrearyThere Comes A TimeAsceticismSynonym
Book:Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge
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“We find nothing easier than being wise, patient, superior. We drip with the oil of forbearance and sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. For that very reason we ought to discipline ourselves a little; for that very reason we ought to cultivate a little emotion, a little emotional vice, from time to time. It may be hard for us; and among ourselves we may perhaps laugh at the appearance we thus present. But what of that! We no longer have any other mode of self-overcoming available to us: this is our asceticism, our penance.”

MayLittlesSelfHardReasonEmotionLaughingWiseEmotionalOughtDisciplineEasierOvercomingForgivingPatientVicesAppearanceAvailableOilSuperiorsSympathyBeing WiseAsceticismPenanceForbearance
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“But it certainly is a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and look up at the sky and see the utter nonsense of everything including all the solemn stuff given out by professional asses about the spiritual life; and simply to burst out laughing, and laugh and laugh, with the sky and the trees because God is not in words, and not in systems, and not in liturgical movements, and not in "contemplation" with a big "C," or in asceticism or in anything like that, not even in the apostolate.”

LooksBigsSpiritualGivenStuffLaughingWonderfulTreeSkyMovementSolitudeLaughterWake UpIncludingWoodsAssContemplationLook UpNonsenseSpiritual LifeWonderful ThingsSolemnAsceticism
Book:The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters
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“If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.”

IfsWorldGivingSelfHardSeemsCareDesireCoursesChristOur LivesPrayingLimitsElementsTrainOneselfFleshSatisfiedThanksgivingCheerfulnessRenunciationReinsAsceticism
Book:The Cost of Discipleship
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“The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is the fact that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable. ... No nation with any sense of material well-being would endure the food we eat, the cramped apartments we live in, the noise, the traffic, the crowded subways and buses. American life, in large cities, at any rate, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves.”

LifeCharacterLife IsViewsCitiesConditionsBearsArgumentRatePoint Of ViewSensesStrongestNervesPerpetualTolerateApartmentAssaultCrowdedMaterialisticSubwayAmerican LifeAsceticismLarge Cities
Author:Mary McCarthy
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“PRACTICE OF THE Art of Peace is an act of faith, a belief in the ultimate power of nonviolence. It is faith in the power of purification and faith in the power of life itself. It is not a type of rigid discipline or empty asceticism. It is a path that follows natural principles, principles, that must be applied to daily living. The Art of Peace should be practiced from the time you rise to greet the morning to the time you retire at night.”

ShouldArtNightBeliefNaturalPrinciplesPracticeMorningPathTypeDisciplineEmptyUltimateRetiringNonviolencePurificationAsceticismDaily LivingUltimate Power
Book:The Art of Peace
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“For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”

LastsOrderIndividualForceBornEconomicModernConditionsBuildingMoralityConcernedMachinesEverydayBoundsDetermineProductionsCellsCosmosMechanismEveryday LifeCoalWorldlyIrresistibleAcquisitionAsceticismEconomic OrderIrresistible Force
Author:Max Weber
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“Now, because men of our contemporary age are caught up in the ascetic view of a life-denying religious system, but in spite of this cannot deny the primal laws of nature, a distorted morality had to be developed, which spreads hypocritical appearances over hidden actions. This has brought to a head all those outward forms of modern life, whose vacuousness and corruption are now beginning to disgust us.”

MenLifeAgeActionFormLawReligionNatureReligiousViewsModernMoralityCaughtCorruptionAppearanceDenySpreadContemporarySpiteDisgustingCaught UpLaws Of NatureHypocriteModern LifeModernityDistortionPrimalHypocriticalAsceticismHidden MeaningVacuousCorrupt Society
Author:Guido von List
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