Refrain From Quotes

#1. An opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level, you need to refrain from activities so as to be able to express this power.

Andrea Bocelli

#2. The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.

Mitch Daniels

#3. Because we can expect future generations to be richer than we are, no matter what we do about resources, asking us to refrain from using resources now so that future generations can have them later is like asking the poor to make gifts to the rich.

Julian Simon

#4. Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

Niccolo Machiavelli

#5. One who does not join in with the unfolding karmic effects (karma oodai) is a Gnani (Self-realized), and an agnani (non-Self-realized) cannot indeed refrain from joining in with the unfolding karmic effects.

Dada Bhagwan

#6. We should not only refrain from thinking about gratifying our desires but also avoid focusing on not gratifying our desires. The way to deal with temptation is not to grit our teeth and make up our minds that we will not do a certain thing. The key is to fill our minds with other things.

David Jeremiah

#7. Child! Do not throw this book about; refrain from the unholy pleasure of cutting all the pictures out.

Hilaire Belloc

#8. If you will refrain from telling any lies about the Republican Party, I'lll promise not to tell the truth about the Democrats.

Chauncey Depew

#9. Children are notoriously curious about everything, everything except ... the things people want them to know. It then remains for us to refrain from forcing any kind of knowledge upon them, and they will be curious about everything.

Floyd Dell

#10. Regrets won't change anything. Don't Reject yourself. Just Refrain from what you did badly; repent and move on.

Israelmore Ayivor

#11. New Year's resolution: To refrain from saying witty, unkind things, unless they are really witty and irreparably damaging.

James Agate

#12. The audience is requested not to refrain from talking during the overture. Otherwise they will know all the tunes before the opera begins.

Ralph Vaughan Williams

#13. The commandment to refrain from placing blame on our parents, deeply imprinted in us by our upbringing, skillfully performs the function of hiding essential truths from us.

Alice Miller

#14. Here's a suggestion you might want to pay attention to. Try to forget everything you learned on Oprah and if you can't do that, at least refrain from regurgitating that crap at me. It spoils my appetite.

Samantha Young

#15. I must not refrain from saying that India can gain more by waiving the right of punishment.

Mahatma Gandhi

#16. I try to refrain from the alarmist statement, really I do. It's bad for the liver and worries the dog, who has plenty enough to worry about as it is.

Christopher Buckley

#17. We must not demonstrate any arrogance, and we must refrain from any irrational or undemocratic behavior.

Chen Shui-bian

#18. I am a very shy person who is just close to himself. So I would refrain from talking about my personal life.

N. T. Rama Rao Jr.

#19. If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life.

Gregory Of Nyssa

#20. Charging [creation of new karma] is under 'your' control and discharge [disposal of karma] is in nature's control. Therefore, if you want to charge, charge positively. Whatever you have charged, nature will not refrain from discharging.

Dada Bhagwan

#21. It is possible to have words come to your mind, and still refrain from speaking them aloud.

Orson Scott Card

#22. Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.

Honore De Balzac

#23. Never forget, the real secret of giving advice is this: Once you've given it, don't concern yourself with whether it is followed or not, and refrain from saying 'I told you so.'

Harvey MacKay

#24. Love, and do what you will. If you keep silence, do it out of love. If you cry out, do it out of love. If you refrain from punishing, do it out of love.

Saint Augustine

#25. Kid ... I must ask you to please refrain from reorganizing the contents of my book without my permission ... ' Noah
'Hmph. If you plan on keeping me locked up in this book, then you can at least keep the thing properly organized.' Death the Kid

Atsushi Ohkubo

#26. If only the ruler and his people would refrain from harming each other, all the benefits of life would accumulate in the kingdom.

Wayne W. Dyer

#27. I'm now requesting you refrain from calling me this early in the morning, before I've had a chance to steel my defenses against hearing you utter the word 'lizard.'"

-- spoken by Dr. Jeri Asheer... to Chris Dixon.

Richard Finney

#28. Those who believe everything they read probably should refrain from reading.

Matt

#29. I've always been ... charming." Prince Baldair smiled at her, and she didn't even refrain from rolling her eyes.

Elise Kova

#30. It is proper netiquette to refrain from using all capital letters in internet correspondence. NetworkEtiquette

David Chiles

#31. Refrain from reckless and thoughtless actions. Be as calm and judicious as a mountain.

Choi Hong Hi

#32. In a nobler age one could have answered such impertinence by jostling his lordship as he stood holding open the door, so that he would have been obliged to demand a meeting. Or did one, even in that age, refrain from jostling people in doorways when a lady was present? Before

Georgette Heyer

#33. I am perfectly confident that I could never adequately convey to any other human being the precise reasons why I continue to refrain from suicide
the reasons, that is, why I still find existence enough of a compensation to atone for its dominantly burthensome quality.

H.P. Lovecraft

#34. Christian men ought not refrain from the sexual pollutions that surround us because they object to lovemaking; they refrain because they object to the wanton vandalism of it. Our culture is doing to sex what people who chew with their mouths open do to food.

Douglas Wilson

#35. To be just, is not enough to refrain from injustice. Once must go further and refuse to play its game, substituting love for self interest as the driving force of society.

Pedro Arrupe

#36. One is taught to refrain from irony, because mankind does tend to take it literally. In the hearing of the gods, who hear all, it is conversely unsage to make a simple and direct statement. So what is one to do? The dilema needs a whole volume to itself.

Max Beerbohm

#37. Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.

Horace

#38. With increased self-awareness comes focus... We become selective. We refrain from jumping to grab every opportunity that comes on our way...

Assegid Habtewold

#39. Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.

John Paul Stevens

#40. The essence of Buddhism is if you can, help others. If not, then at least refrain from hurting others.

Dalai Lama

#41. A threat should never be spoken, your enemy should not be told of your intentions. Either take decisive action or refrain from it, but never threaten

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

#42. The severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.

Sydney J. Harris

#43. The small man thinks that small acts of goodness are of no benefit, and does not do them; and that small deeds of evil do no harm, and does not refrain from them. Hence, his wickedness becomes so great that it cannot be concealed, and his guilt so great that it cannot be pardoned.

Confucius

#44. It is part of the irony of life that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power.

John Stuart Mill

#45. Nothing can be said: nothing sure, nothing probable, nothing honest. Better to err through omission than through commission: better to refrain from steering the fate of others, since it is already so difficult to navigate one's own.

Primo Levi

#46. We should refrain from anything that seems to be a final judgment of any person ... the Lord alone has the capacity to judge ... And, in all of this we must remember the command to forgive.

Dallin H. Oaks

#47. For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahamati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh.

Gautama Buddha

#48. I refrain from lots of things I love, like cheese and carbs. I eat plenty of greens every day, my favorite being watercress.

Chloe Sevigny

#49. Do what helps others.
Refrain from harming others.
Transcend your own ignorance, clinging, hate, fear and delusion.
This and only this is the dispensation of all the Buddhas.

Paul R. Fleischman

#50. To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood.

Ben Marcus

#51. If policymakers are serious about avoiding a society of TV 'haves and have-nots,' they should refrain from policies that favor pay-TV operators over the providers of our nation's only free and local communications system: over-the-air broadcasting.

Gordon Smith

#52. A man can refrain from wanting what he has not and cheerfully make the best of a bird in the hand.

Seneca The Younger

#53. You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together.

Gautama Buddha

#54. The best we can do is strive to minimize the amount of harm we cause by living. We need to eat in order to live, and there is no moral or ethical code that dictates that we should refrain from eating and allow ourselves to die for some higher purpose.

Sharon Gannon

#55. This struck me as something of a double bind. Speak and your possession of an opinion was plain, clear to anyone. Refrain from speaking and still this was proof of an opinion. If Captain Rubran were to say, Truly, I have no opinion on the matter, would that merely be another proof she had one?

Ann Leckie

#56. I plead with you to have the courage to refrain from judging and criticizing those around you, as well as the courage to make certain that everyone is included and feels loved and valued.

Thomas S. Monson

#57. When will talkers refrain from evil speaking? When listeners refrain from evil hearing. At present there are many so credulous of evil, they will receive suspicions and impressions against persons whom they don't know, from a person whom they do know
an authority good for nothing.

Augustus William Hare

#58. It was all Mrs. Waddington could do to refrain from hurling a bust of Edgar Allan Poe at her head.

P.G. Wodehouse

#59. Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

H.L. Mencken

#60. Let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.

Seneca The Younger

#61. One should refrain from contempt for the baser specimens of humanity, for whom liberation amounts to shaving the heads of women who have slept with Germans.

Coco Chanel

#62. A hint: perhaps in this case, you should refrain from throwing the book at the audience when you finish.

Annie Barrows

#63. An unlucky rich man is more capable of satisfying his desires and of riding out disaster when it strikes, but a lucky man is better off than him ... He is the one who deserves to be described as happy. But until he is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate.

Solon

#64. That does not mean that we must forego just and fair criticism, or refrain from opposition to policies which are debatable or which do not command our approval.

Bainbridge Colby

#65. Refrain from throwing your bicycle in public. It shows poor upbringing

Jacquie Phelan

#66. Where there is asakti [infatuation], there accusations cannot refrain from happening. That is indeed the nature of asakti [infatuation].

Dada Bhagwan

#67. To refrain from evil and from strong drink and to be always, steadfast in virtue; this is the good luck.

Gautama Buddha

#68. Perhaps if you were to refrain from deploying the phrase 'ignorant
buffoon' with a liberality most writers reserve for 'it' and 'the,'
you would find a readier audience.

Vinnie Tesla

#69. Who doesn't know that the first law of history is not to dare to say anything false, and the second is not to refrain from saying anything true?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#70. No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God incline his heart, and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing.

Blaise Pascal

#71. He's the kind of kid who, just looking at him, you know gets bullied by the older boys and takes it out on everyone who is either weaker than him or required to refrain from smacking him.

Thomm Quackenbush

#72. Refrain from doing ill; for one all powerful reason, lest our children should copy our misdeeds; we are all too prone to imitate whatever is base and depraved.

Juvenal

#73. Sometimes it takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. I want to howl and foam at the mouth but I daren't.

Joseph Conrad

#74. It is a bigger miracle to be patient and refrain from anger than it is to control the demons which fly through the air.

John Cassian

#75. The dreamed outcome of launching a psychic attack can make you feel small and petty. I think for that reason I'm going to refrain from launching any.

Heidi Julavits

#76. To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.

Aleister Crowley

#77. If you refrain from judging your worst enemy, his children will come to your side. What more severe judgment could come upon an enemy than this?

Sun Myung Moon

#78. One should refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs.

Gautama Buddha

#79. Refrain from drink which is the source of all evil-and the ruin of half the workmen in this Country.

George Washington

#80. Heinlein's Rules for Writers
Rule One: You Must Write
Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Robert A. Heinlein

#81. Where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that.

Meister Eckhart

#82. That, Senators, is what a favour from gangs amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#83. William wondered why he always disliked people who said 'no offense meant.' Maybe it was because they found it easier to to say 'no offense meant' than actually to refrain from giving offense.

Terry Pratchett

#84. In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

Andre Gide

#85. There must be something in oneself which is essential. Therefore I refrain from referring to a landscape or certain objects when speaking of a picture. The hand is cleverer than the mind.

Douglas Portway

#86. if we seek social status, we give other people power over us: We have to do things calculated to make them admire us, and we have to refrain from doing things that will trigger their disfavor.

William B. Irvine

#87. If the creatures with fur/feathers/fins are our brothers in a lower stage of development then their very weakness and inability to protest, demands that man should refrain from torturing them for the mere possibility of obtaining some knowledge which he believes may be to his own interest.

Luther Burbank

#88. The prophet shows that, for the sake of silence, we are to abstain even from good talk. If this be so, how much more needful is it that we refrain from evil words, on account of the penalty of the sin!

Benedict Of Nursia

#89. I cannot refrain from doubting that there exist any genuine realizations of our deepest character except war and illness, those two infinities of nightmare.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine

#90. What is most important is to cease legislating for all lives what is liveable only for some, and similarly, to refrain from proscribing for all lives what is unlivable for some.

Judith Butler

#91. She swiped at her eyes. "Suck it up," she whispered fiercely to herself. "It's all good, no matter how hard it is." "I'm going to refrain from saying 'That's what she said' since you seem to be having a moment.

Jill Shalvis

#92. Sloane," he said pulling away when I started to fall out of his arms. "It's killing me to fight this. I can't. I don't want to. Not anymore."
I swayed and his arms steadied me.
"Are you okay?" he asked. His lips quirked. "I might have to refrain from kissing you if you're going to faint.

Micalea Smeltzer

#93. Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can't. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women.

Erica Jong

#94. Everything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but not temperance.

James Boswell

#95. The very idea that grand conclusions could follow from such logomachist trickery offends me aesthetically, so I must take care to refrain from bandying words like 'fool'.

Richard Dawkins

#96. As a psychopathic creature, the corporation can neither recognize nor act upon moral reasons to refrain from harming others.

Joel Bakan

#97. Really now: If you can't get me my newspaper on time, how can you expect me to refrain from killing people?

Jeff Lindsay

#98. We can help our nation quite a bit if we refrain from getting into our respective corners and throwing hand grenades at each other, and instead try to understand the other's viewpoint, reject the stifling of political correctness, and engage in intelligent civil discussion.

Ben Carson

#99. Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates ... Instead, they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service, should learn to think and act as a mass.

Ernesto Che Guevara

#100. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you know how easy it is.

Terry Pratchett