Abnegation Quotes - Page 2

• The supreme blossoming of character lies (or reside) in renounciation (or renuncement) and abnegation of self ("abnégation de soi", Fr.)

  African Spir

  Lying, Character, Self

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 38), 1937.

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• The church doctrines of obedience to authority, repentance, fear of punishment, self-abnegation, acceptance of outer direction rather than inner assurance, elevation of faith over reason, and intolerance make institutionalized religion an ideal instrument of social constraint.

  Madalyn Murray O'Hair

  Acceptance, Punishment, Self

  Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1974). “Freedom Under Siege: The Impact of Organized Religion on Your Liberty and Your Pocketbook”, Tarcher

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• Tolerance can be exercised only by those who have well-grounded convictions (although it will not always be exercised even by them). For such people tolerance is an act of self-abnegation; although they are convinced that those who differ from them must be wrong, they nevertheless will protect their rights.

  Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

  Religious, Rights, Self

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• When we choose to have an abortion, we must do so understanding the full ramifications of what we are doing. Anything less feels to me to be hypocritical, a selfish abnegation of reality and responsibility.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Selfish, Responsibility, Reality

  Ayelet Waldman (2013). “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace”, p.113, Hachette UK

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• And I don't see that popular measures, self-abnegation and democracy have done anything for Man but push him further into the mud. Currently, popularity endorses degraded novels, self-abnegation has filled the Southeast Asian jungles with stone idols and corpses, and democracy has given us inflation and income tax.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Men, Democracies Have, Self

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• The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the 'poor in spirit.'

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Lonely, Blessed, Heart

  "The Pursuit of God". Book by Aiden Wilson Tozer, 1957.

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• The very act of sacrifice magnifies the one who sacrifices himself to the point where his sacrifice is much more costly to humanity than would have been the loss of those for whom he is sacrificing himself. But in his abnegation lies the secret of his grandeur.

  Andre Gide

  Lying, Loss, Sacrifice

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• There are daily martyrdoms occurring of more or less self-abnegation, and of which the world knows nothing.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Self, World, Martyr

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• A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.

  Herman Melville

  Military, Self, Monk

  Herman Melville (2016). “Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories”, p.190, Penguin

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• The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.

  Emma Goldman

  Regret, Father, Self

  Emma Goldman (1998). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”

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• Power is violence, its promise, its deed. Power cares nothing for reason, nothing for justice, nothing for compassion. It is, in fact, the singular abnegation of these things - once the cloak of deceits is stripped away, this one truth is revealed.

  Steven Erikson

  Compassion, Justice, Promise

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• Above all, remember that God looks for solid virtues in us, such as patience, humility, obedience, abnegation of your own will - that is, the good will to serve Him and our neighbor in Him. His providence allows us other devotions only insofar as He sees that they are useful to us.

  Ignatius of Loyola

  Humility, Looks, Remember

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• They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of man.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Heart, Men, Ease

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.139, Lulu.com

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• It costs to be a friend or to have a friend. There is nothing else in life except motherhood that costs so much. It not only costs time, affection, patience, love, but sometimes a man must even lay down his life for his friends. There is no true friendship without self-abnegation, self-sacrifice.

  Anna Robertson Brown Lindsay

  True Friend, Sacrifice, Motherhood

  Anna Robertson Brown Lindsay (1803). “What is Worth While?”, p.27

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• As one might expect, authoritarianism will at times cause children and students to adopt rebellious positions, defiant of any limit, discipline, or authority. But it will also lead to apathy, excessive obedience, uncritical conformity, lack of resistance against authoritarian discourse, self-abnegation, and fear of freedom.

  Paulo Freire

  Children, Self, Discipline

  Paulo Freire (2005). “Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those who Dare Teach”

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• This gospel we have received is one of sacrifice, service and self-abnegation from beginning to end. That is what constitutes the straight and narrow way that leads to life eternal.

  George F. Richards

  Sacrifice, Self, Way

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• In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.

  Michael Faraday

  Father, Self, Common Sense

  Michael Faraday (1859). “Experimental researches in Chemistry and Physics ... Reprinted from the Philosophical Transactions of 1821-1857; the Journal of the Royal Institution ... and other publications”, p.475

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• Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Self, Korea, Abjection

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.64, Basic Books

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• Whoa there, Tobias," says the man to my left. "Weren't you raised a Stiff? I thought the most you people did was... graze hands or something." "Then how do you explain all the Abnegation children?" Tobias raises his eyebrows. "They are brought into being by sheer force of will," the woman on the arm of the chair interjects. "Didn't you know that, Tobias?" "No, I wasn't aware." He grins. "My apologies.

  Veronica Roth

  Children, Apology, Men

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• I knew by the way he looked at her that he held her in a higher regard than he held even himself. No selfishness or insecurity kept him from seeing the full extent of her goodeness, as it so often does with the rest of us. That kind of love may only be possible in Abnegation. I do not know. My father: Erudite-born, Abnegation-grown. He often found it difficult to live up to the demands of his chosen faction, just as I did. But he tried, and he knew true selflessness when he saw it.

  Veronica Roth

  Father, Insecurity, Selfishness

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• She tips her chin up and looks at me with that Abnegation stubbornness I know so well. She may have left them, but they are what’s making her strong.

  Veronica Roth

  Strong, Looks, May

  Veronica Roth (2013). “Free Four - Tobias tells the Divergent Knife-Throwing Scene”, p.7, HarperCollins UK

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• Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be." "That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl, that's not you?"... "You've been paying close attention, haven't you?" "I like to observe people/" "Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar.

  Veronica Roth

  Girl, Dad, Liars

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• [In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.

  Antonia Fraser

  Eye, Self, Order

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• We could decide simply to remain absorbed in the mysterious, unformed, free-play of reality. This would be the choice of the mystic who seeks to extinguish himself in God or Nirvana—analogous perhaps to the tendency among artists to obliterate themselves with alcohol or opiates. But if we value our participation in a shared reality in which it makes sense to make sense, then such self-abnegation would deny a central element of our humanity: the need to speak and act, to share our experience with others.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Artist, Reality, Self

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• The search for scapegoats is essentially an abnegation of responsibility: it indicates an inability to assess honestly and intelligently the true nature of the problems which lie at the root of social and economic difficulties and a lack of resolve in grappling with them.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Lying, Responsibility, Roots

  Aung San Suu Kyi, University of Oxford. Refugee Studies Programme (1993). “Towards a true refuge”

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