Generosity knows how to count, but refrains.

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

Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we…

— Lawrence Lessig

Only with great care. For thousands, carols will be their only link with a church. At the same time, sentimentality is perhaps the single…

— Jeremy Begbie

If true, the Pythagorean principles as to abstain from flesh, foster innocence; if ill-founded they at least teach us frugality, and what loss have…

— Seneca the Younger

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger.…

— Nhat Hanh

One should refrain from contempt for the baser specimens of humanity, for whom liberation amounts to shaving the heads of women who have slept…

— Coco Chanel

It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand the other’s different and contradictory sides and refrain…

— Azar Nafisi

Virtue also depends on ourselves. And so also does vice. For where we are free to act we are also free to refrain from…

— Aristotle

To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them,…

— Ben Marcus

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

— James Agate

There is an old proverb to the effect that 'all those who open their mouths, close their eyes!' The purpose of silence and solitude…

— Richard J. Foster

We need never refrain from asking anything of God simply on the ground that we think it impossible. God specializes in "impossible" things that…

— Carroll Eugene Simcox

All religious vows, codes, and commitments are null & void herein. Please refrain from contaminating the ideosphere with harmful memes through prayer, reverence, holy…

— Greg Erwin

Monkeys who very sensibly refrain from speech, lest they should be set to earn their livings.

— Kenneth Grahame

Children and scientists share an outlook on life. If I do this, what will happen? is both the motto of the child at play…

— James Gleick