Virginia Postrel Quotes

The ability to delay gratification has implications not only for a person's life, but also for a community, for a people, for a country.

Reading a novel in which all characters illustrate patience, hard work, chastity, and delayed gratification could be a pretty dull experience.

The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.

We benefit, intellectually and personally, from the interplay between different selves, from the balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse. We should be wary about tipping the scales too far. The community of selves shouldn't be a democracy, but it shouldn't be a dictatorship, either.

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline.

We say no to lots of things that would please us. I would like to punch people every now and then, but I don't. I would like to have something for free rather than pay for it. I would like to skip to the front of the line... I don't mean to brush aside the taste of meat, which is a powerful attraction. But its power is not without limit.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Use, do not abuse... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Why resist temptation? There will always be more.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.

No mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy.

Teach him to deny himself.

You gotta take care of yourself; you can't do anything in excess.

It is with our passions as it is with fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters.

Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself, and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.

Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life. Too many of us divide and dissipate our energies in debating actions which should be taken for granted.

How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?

Protect me from what I want.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

Little hearts, little souls give little lusts big power. Big hearts give little lusts little power.