ASCETICISM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Asceticism

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Asceticism

noun

The doctrine that through renunciation of worldly pleasures it is possible to achieve a high spiritual or intellectual state.

The trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures). Synonyms: austerity, nonindulgence.

Rigorous self-denial and active self-restraint. Synonym: ascesis.

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Etymology of 'Asceticism'

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"Asceticism" Quotes from Famous Books

... commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means ...

— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... written for himself. It is interesting to note that the quotations from it are from a version that preceded our own. His rules of self-discipline and spiritual culture, while wholly free from unwholesome asceticism, nevertheless required the curbing of all desires, and the utter subjection of every natural prompting to a crucial test, before its innocent or edifying ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... or write, or go painfully upon difficult paths of thought, like many other men whom the world dismays, I win a larger tranquillity and a clearer vision from an increased simplicity of life. I know that to use the word asceticism of one's daily practice is to incur the judgment of all those whom the world calls good fellows, whose motto is live and let live, or any other aphorism of convenient and universal remission. To ...

— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... there were numbers who did not consider it worth while enduring a certain jostling for the right half of their ration; it was not worth it—and they might get the wrong half! The meat man did not like the boycott at all; he wanted to get rid of his surplus sirloins, and the asceticism of those who preferred to thrive on black tea enabled him to invite the unparticular people to pick and choose the rib—the equine rib—they liked best. The authorities, to do them justice, had acted straightforwardly in differentiating between the two animals; no deception in the ...

— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... intellect, certainly; yet, it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is ...

— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

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