Precept & Practice – FEBRUARY 15 – Self-control

Almost everything worth knowing we teach ourselves after leaving school.   But the discipline of school is invaluable in teaching the important lesson of self-control.   Self-denial and self-control are the necessary postulates of all moral excellence.   A man who will take the world easily will never take it grandly.   To lie in the lap of luxury may be the highest enjoyment of what a feeble character is capable;  but a strong man must have something difficult to do.   Moreover, the happiness of the human race does not consist in our being devoid of passions, but in our learning to control them.

Prof. J. S. Blackie

The poorest education that teaches self-control is better than the best that neglects it.

Sterling

There never has been, and cannot be, a good life without self-control;  apart from self-control, no good life is imaginable.   The attainment of goodness must begin with that.

Tolstoi

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW