Asceticism Quotes

“It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“an ascetic might be a pauper, but he has ashrams where love, happiness, and prosperity overflow.”
― Merlin Franco, Saint Richard Parker

“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.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Read from a distant star, the majuscule script of our earthly existence would perhaps lead to the conclusion that the earth was the distinctively ascetic planet, a nook of disgruntled, arrogant creatures filled with a profound disgust with themselves, at the earth, at all life, who inflict as much pain on themselves as they possibly can out of pleasure in inflicting pain which is probably their only pleasure.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo

“This kind of renunciation, in fact, has often been the strength, born of necessity, of the world's disinherited, of those who do not fit in with their surroundings or with their own body or with their own race or tradition and who hope, by means of renunciation, to assure for themselves a future world where, to use a Nietzschean expression, the inversion of all values will occur.”
― Julius Evola

“As far as monks are concerned, I believe that they are bad experiencers. They know nothing about the struggles of a normal human being. The struggle to stay alive. The struggle to survive in this capitalist world. The trauma of being in a bad relationship. Juggling between the myriads of emotions and sentiments. These monks are oblivious to such battles which a normal human being fights every day.”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“The problem with pleasure is that it needs to be intermittent in order to retain its pleasantness.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Sex is often an attempt to entertain oneself through one’s own genitals, through the use of someone else’s genitals.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The best kind of pleasure comes from the indifference to pain … and pleasure.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“To chase pleasure is to be chased by pain.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms

“Companies, entertainers, content creators, politicians, preachers ... Everybody is squeezing you in the name of your family. Don't run away from your responsibilities but you should seek eternal freedom and not waste your life in gratifying some ghosts that are pretending to be your family members and holding you hostage.”
― Shunya

“Does giving bring happiness”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“The ancients used to go to jungle to do Sadhana i.e. to face hardships, danger and uncertainly with nothing but faith. Now people want to escape to jungle for peace. If you want to do Sadhana, society is the new jungle. All kinds of animals are roaming here in human clothes.”
― Shunya

“Sex is a need … to the continuation of the life of the species; not that of the animal, or the person.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“We shall see clearly that it is greater to despise the world than to have it at one's command; that it is infinitely preferable to submit to the humblest of men for God's sake, than to command kings and princes; that an humble knowledge of ourselves surpasses the deepest sciences; in short, that greater praise is due to him who curbs his passions on the most trivial occasions, than to him who conquers the strongest cities, defeats entire armies, or even works miracles and raises the dead to life.”
― Lawrence Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat and A Treatise on Peace of the Soul

“When you're attached to a team or a player, a game becomes an emotional ferry wheel. Else you just chill and enjoy it like art. Similarly, when you're attached to things, life is a ferry wheel of emotions. When you're detached, life is a walk through an art village.”
― Shunya

“Sex for pleasure is chewing gum for genitals.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“if spirituality points to a higher purpose it should never have been separated [completely] from serious affairs, especially with regards to diplomacy and psychology.”
― Psixaristw

“It seems absurd for a man of twenty-eight to renounce the pleasures of life, doing violence to his nature by a pure act of will. An untold number had done this before him for religious reasons, but Kafka had based his renunciation on nothing but a self-image. He claimed that for better or worse he was what he was, and that therefore much was out of the question for him”
― Reiner Stach, Kafka: Die frühen Jahre

“If the average American were to jump right into week long retreat in a Zen monastery, it would certainly feel like an excruciatingly painful practice of extreme asceticism—but so would trying to run a full marathon on the first day one decides to take up jogging. It may be the case that many Zen monasteries tilt too far in the direction of asceticism, even more than is necessary as a corrective to our more hedonistic lifestyle. But it is no doubt true that many of our lifestyles tilt too far in the direction of indulging various desires, an indulgence that multiplies and distorts our natural desires into unnatural cravings.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“To regard Zen as a form of asceticism and nothing more will be a grievous mistake. What Zen aims at is to reduce the claims of the body to a minimum in order to divert their course to a higher realm of activities. To torture the body is not its object, nor is it its object to gain merit and thereby to lay one's fortune in heaven.”
― Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, The Training Of The Zen Buddhist Monk

“You can close the shutters on your life and dwell in a dreamlike existence, poor in deeds but effervescent in thought.”
― Claudio Naranjo, Psicología de los eneatipos: AVARICIA

“In Xenophon's summary of the allegory [Prodicus' "Choice of Heracles'' ] the young Heracles has sat down at a crossroads, not knowing which path to follow through life. As he sits deliberating, two women appear to him. Their physical appearance is a study in contrasts, and they are clearly villainness and heroine. Evil (Kakia) is overfed, plump, rouged, and all powdered up. She wears revealing clothes and is vain, viewing herself in a mirror and turning around to see if she is being admired. Virtue (Arete), on the other hand, wears simple white; her only adornments are purity, modesty, and temperance.
These apparitions proceed to give speeches in praise of the life that they can give Heracles. Evil speaks first-an ominous choice, since in such debates, the first speaker typically loses. She offers Heracles a life of free, effortless pleasure. There will be no delights that he will not taste, no difficulties that he will not avoid. He need never worry about wars and affairs. All he need trouble himself about will be what food or drink to take; what to look at, hear, smell or touch for his pleasure; what partner he might enjoy, how he might sleep softest, and how he can obtain all these with the least toil (aponOtata). If ever there are shortages, he will not suffer ponos or hardship either in body or soul. Rather "you will enjoy those things that others work to produce, and you will not hold back from profiting everywhere." Evil tells Heracles her name, but adds confidentially that to her friends she is known as Happiness (Eudaimonia).

Very different is the tone and substance of Virtue's argument. For while Evil would have Heracles live for himself alone and treat others as means to his self-gratification, Virtue begins by saying that she knows Heracles' parents and nature: Heracles must live up to his Olympian heritage. Therefore she will not deceive him with "hymns to pleasure." Evil's enticements are in fact contrary to the divine ordering, "for the gods have given men nothing good without ponos and diligence." There follows a series of emphatic verbal nouns to hammer home this truth: if you want divine favor, you must worship the gods; if you want to be admired, you must do good works for your friends; if you want to be honored, you must benefit your city and Greece; if you want the earth to bear crops, you must cultivate the land. Flocks require tending, war demands practice. And if you want strength (Heracles' trademark), you must accustom your body to serve your will, and you must train "with ponoi and sweat:'

At this point, Evil bursts in to deplore such a harsh lifestyle. She is immediately silenced, however, as Virtue argues that duality is essential to a sense of fulfillment and even to pleasure itself. For paradoxically, ponos (pain, struggle) makes pleasure pleasurable. Evil's vision of happiness is one of continual and languid orgy-food without hunger, drink without thirst, sex without desire, sleep without weariness. But as experience shows, continual partying soon loses its zest, even if one goes so far as to cool expensive drinks "with snow" in summertime. By contrast, Virtue's own followers have no real trouble in satisfying their desires. They do so not by committing violence against others or living off others' labor, but by simply "holding off until they actually do desire" food or drink. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is free.
Furthermore, Virtue appeals to Heracles' native idealism. What hedonists have ever accomplished any "fine work" (ergon kalon)? None, for no beautiful or divine deed is ever done "without me [Virtue] ." Therefore, wherever there are energetic, effective people, Virtue is present: she is a helper to craftsmen, a guard of the household, a partner in peacetime ponoi, an ally for the works (erga) of war, the best support of friendship. To choose Evil would be shameful and not even extremely pleasurable, while with Virtue one will lead the most varied and honorable life.”
― Will Desmond, The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism

“the average outsider is convinced, not only that Catholicism is nothing except asceticism, but that asceticism is nothing except pessimism.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

“Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control: and it is indulged in much saner proportion under Catholic Authority than in Pagan or Puritan anarchy.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

“Any extreme of Catholic asceticism is a wise, or unwise, precaution against the evil of the Fall; it is never a doubt about the good of Creation.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

“But touching her corpse outwardly, they perceived it to be a woman's and, full of astonishment, they praised Christ, who kindleth the fire of His Love in all mankind, men and women, old men and youths and children.”
― A J and Albertus Schwengler: Wensinck, Legends of Eastern Saints Chiefly from Syriac Sources. Volume 1: Archelides; Volume 2: Hilaria. Bound with: Eusebii Pamphilii Historiae Ecclesiasticae Lib X, Ed A Schwegler.

“Whether he feels guilty with regard to the loved being, or whether he seeks to impress that being by representing his unhappiness, the amorous subject outline an ascetic behavior of self-punishment (in life style, dress, etc.).

Since I am guilty of this, of that (I have—I assign myself—a thousand reasons for being so), I shall punish myself, I shall chasten my body: cut my hair very short, conceal my eyes behind dark glasses (a way of taking the veil), devote myself to the study of some serious and abstract branch of learning. I shall get up early and work while it is still dark outside, like a monk. I shall be very patient, a little sad, in a word, worthy, as suits a man of resentment. I shall (hysterically) signify my mourning (the mourning which I assign myself) in my dress, my haircut, the regularity of my habits. This will be a gentle retreat; just that slight degree of retreat necessary to the proper functioning of a discrete pathos.”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“Whether he feels guilty with regard to the loved being, or whether he seeks to impress that being by representing his unhappiness, the amorous subject outlines an ascetic behavior of self-punishment (in life style, dress, etc.).

Since I am guilty of this, of that (I have—I assign myself—a thousand reasons for being so), I shall punish myself, I shall chasten my body: cut my hair very short, conceal my eyes behind dark glasses (a way of taking the veil), devote myself to the study of some serious and abstract branch of learning. I shall get up early and work while it is still dark outside, like a monk. I shall be very patient, a little sad, in a word, worthy, as suits a man of resentment. I shall (hysterically) signify my mourning (the mourning which I assign myself) in my dress, my haircut, the regularity of my habits. This will be a gentle retreat; just that slight degree of retreat necessary to the proper functioning of a discrete pathos.”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“If the fear of death were merely the fear of dying, it would be better dealt with by medicine than by argument. There is, or there might be, an art of dying well, of dying painlessly, willingly, and in season,—as in those noble partings which Attic gravestones depict,—especially if we were allowed, as Lucretius would allow us, to choose our own time.

But the radical fear of death, I venture to think, is something quite different. It is the love of life. Epicurus, who feared life, seems to have missed here the primordial and colossal force he was fighting against. Had he perceived that force, he would have been obliged to meet it in a more radical way, by an enveloping movement, as it were, and an attack from the rear. The love of life is not something rational, or founded on experience of life. It is something antecedent and spontaneous. It is that Venus Genetrix which covers the earth with its flora and fauna. It teaches every animal to seek its food and its mate, and to protect its offspring; as also to resist or fly from all injury to the body, and most of all from threatened death. It is the original impulse by which good is discriminated from evil, and hope from fear.

Nothing could be more futile, therefore, than to marshal arguments against that fear of death which is merely another name for the energy of life, or the tendency to self-preservation. Arguments involve premises, and these premises, in the given case, express some particular form of the love of life; whence it is impossible to conclude that death is in no degree evil and not at all to be feared. For what is most dreaded is not the agony of dying, nor yet the strange impossibility that when we do not exist we should suffer for not existing. What is dreaded is the defeat of a present will directed upon life and its various undertakings. Such a present will cannot be argued away, but it may be weakened by contradictions arising within it, by the irony of experience, or by ascetic discipline. To introduce ascetic discipline, to bring out the irony of experience, to expose the self-contradictions of the will, would be the true means of mitigating the love of life; and if the love of life were extinguished, the fear of death, like smoke rising from that fire, would have vanished also.”
― George Santayana, Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante And Goethe