Quotes About Self Control

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“I am very happy
Because I have conquered myself
And not the world.
I am very happy
Because I have loved the world
And not myself.”
― Sri Chinmoy

“The best fighter is never angry.”
― Lao Tzu

“Sam: “You—you greatly overestimate my self-control.”
Grace: “I’m not looking for self-control.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“If you conquer yourself, then you conquer the world”
― Paulo Coelho, Aleph

“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
― Lao Tzu

“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it...Don't allow his anger to become your anger.”
― Bohdi Sanders, Warrior Wisdom: Ageless Wisdom for the Modern Warrior

“Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.”
― Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War

“I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.”
― Robert E. Lee

“I would have done anything for him. But these days, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to get drunk or go to a wild party or make out with random boys-not that I've ever wanted to. I don't want to watch chick flicks or eat ice cream or get a haircut or buy out half of the mall. I don't want cold, cruel revenge. I don't want to see him suffer when karma catches up with him and kick his ass. I don't even want to talk to him right now, simply because it would be awkward and pathetic and I wouldn't know what to say to him. Yes, there is self-control, preventing me from being stupid and acting like a desperate doofus in the manner most heartbroken people do. But there is also a weary numbness threatening to consume every inch of me: Isn't there a way for me to skip straight to the part where I'm fine again?”
― Marla Miniano, Every Girl's Guide to Heartache

“Here’s one of my favorite statements: We are never going to enjoy stability, we are never going to enjoy spiritual maturity until we learn how to do what’s right when it feels wrong, and every time you do what’s right by a decision of your will using discipline and self control to go beyond how you feel, the more painful it is in your flesh, the more you’re growing spiritually at that particular moment.”
― Joyce Meyer

“I want to kiss you.” Jace’s whisper pulled me from my thoughts and I glanced up to find his eyes blazing with raw need. “Just because Marc won’t touch you doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. Right? I don’t have that kind of self-control, and honestly, I don’t see the point in it. Are you supposed to be impressed by how long we can go without touching you? ’Cause if that’s the game we’re playing, I think I’d rather lose.”
― Rachel Vincent, Alpha

“I tell you what when I see chocolate chip cookies I can’t just eat one. I’ve got to eat a dozen. I don’t have any self control. Well, come on! You’re just talking yourself right into the pit! You do have self control, and you need to start looking at those cookies and saying, “If I want you I’ll eat you, and if I don’t I won’t!” Come on! Talk to that plateful of food! I am born again and baptized in the Holy Ghost! I have the power of the universe on the inside of me, and if I do not want to eat you I will not eat you! I mean how do you expect to defeat the devil if you can’t even defeat a chocolate chip cookie!?!?”
― Joyce Meyer

“The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Sometimes,
you must refrain from doing things you want so bad.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“You can control yourself if you really want to. I'll tell you how I know you can control yourself. If you were in a full fledged emotional temper tantrum in your house and I knocked on your front door..... Come on! Let me tell you what, you would get control of yourself, and it would only take a few seconds.”
― Joyce Meyer

“How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.”
― Joseph Campbell

“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word.”
― Hazrat Inayat Khan, Mastery Through Accomplishment

“Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.”
― Criss Jami

“I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.”
― Peggy Noonan, Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now

“Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.”
― Warren G. Bennis