Archive-name: Miscell/sexdefs.txt
Archive-author: 
Archive-title: Definitions of Sex


Adler:  The task of human parents is to enhance the spiritual
life of the next generation by planting the seed of spirit in
their own child.

Al-Tirmidhi:  Man is humble only when the flaming fire of desires
has become extinct. Al-Tirmidhi

Aristotle:  Desire is accompanied by pain.

            Avoid the inclination to animalistic pleasure, for it
stains the soul. Do not yield to the desire for sexual
intercourse.  What glory is in following the actions of animals?
Sexual intercourse involves the destruction of our bodies, the
shortening of life.

Thomas Aquinas:  Plato based his moral system upon the
distinction between the bodily or sensual and the spiritual part
of our nature.

Marcus Aurelius: In the degree in which a man's mind is nearer to
freedom from all passion, in that degree also it is nearer to
strength.

Besant:  Only when pleasures have been banished, then there comes
upon us a boundless joy that is firm and unalterable.

Jacob Boehme:  Lust is an abomination, whether it be in the state
of wedlock or out of it. Marriage based on lust is as immoral as
free love.

Buddha:  Freedom from lust; this truly is the highest happiness.

         Cut down the whole forest of lust! When you have cut
down every tree and every shrub, then you will be free! Buddha I
proclaim the annihilation of lust.  I teach not the extinction of
everything, but the extinction of lust.  One need not have his
mortal body die to avoid the clutches of concupiscence.

Edward Carpenter:  Sex today is slimed over with the thought of
pleasure.

Cervantes:  Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.

Clement of Alexandria:  The mortal shall put on immortality when
trained to everlasting chastity.

Auguste Comte:  To control the sexual impulse efficiently has
always been and ever will be regarded as the highest test of
human wisdom.
                Abstinence serves to strengthen mutual affection.
The feeling of attachment becomes stronger and more constant when
the conjugal relation is maintained habitually pure.

The Cure d'Ars:  Humility is to the virtues what the chain is to
the rosary: remove the chain, and all the beads escape; take away
humility, and all the virtues disappear.

Havelock Ellis:  The masters of all the more intensely emotional
arts have frequently cultivated a high degree of chastity . . .
Men of great genius have apparently been completely continent
throughout life.

Emerson:  When men are innocent, life shall be longer.

Euripades:  Everyman is like the company he is wont to keep.  The
company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a
rich estate.

Euripides (sic):  Life's best delight I place in chastity alone.

Freud:  The pleasure principle prevails over the reality
principle to the detriment of the whole organism.
        All the means that have been resorted to in order to
prevent conception disturb the finer sensibilities of man and
woman, especially of the woman, since here, as so often in
matters of sex, the man's satisfaction is largely at the cost of
the woman.  The supreme objection to all methods of contraception
is in the spiritual field.  No one can practice any form of birth
control without being injured spiritually.
        The knowledge of the essential factors of sexuality is
still withheld from us.
        The abstinent scientist can devote more of his energy to
study.
        Sexual excitement is furnished from all the sense organs
of the body.
        A child brings along into the world germs of sexual
activity.
        Premature sexual activity impairs the educability of the
child.

Gandhi:  Celibacy is not of much value if it is attainable only
by retirement from the world.
         Our entire environment--our reading, our thinking, our
social behavior--is generally calculated to subserve and cater to
the sex urge.
         The sexual glands are all the time secreting semen.
This secretion should be utilized for enhancing one's mental,
physical, and spiritual energy.
         Celibacy is indispensable for self-realization. Gandhi
Self-restraint is indispensable for individual as well as
universal progress.
         Love becomes lust the moment you make it a means for the
satisfaction of animal needs.
         Celibacy means control in thought, word, and action, of
all the senses at all times and in all places.
Human love is intended to serve as a stepping stone to divine or
universal love.
         Man unfortunately forgets that he is nearest the divine.
He hankers instead after the brute instinct in himself, and
becomes less than the brute.
         The observance of celibacy becomes comparatively easy if
one acquires mastery over the palate.
G.S. Hall, Adolescence:  Continence would be of the greatest help
in humanity's struggle against illness, because in the continent
person the undiminished internal secretions of the sex glands are
better able to fulfill their task of keeping the system immune to
infections.

Hermes:  The original cause of death is carnal desire.

         Sex is a thing of bodies, not of souls.

         Death is like an arrow that is already in flight, and
your life lasts only until it reaches you.

Aldous Huxley:  The energy created by sexual restraint is the
motive power which makes it possible for us to conceive desirable
ends, and to think out the means for realizing them.

Kant:  First, it is man's duty to raise himself out of his animal
nature.
       The end of humanity in respect to sexuality is to preserve
the species without debasing the person.

Thomas a Kempis:  Spiritual comforts exceed all the delights of
the world and all pleasures of the flesh.

E. Luckla, Eros:  Sexuality and love are opposed principles.

Lucanus:  We should not have sexual connection for the sake of
pleasure, but only for the sake of begetting good children.

Sign above Carl Jung's door:  Summoned or not, God will be there.

P. Mantegazza, The Physiology of Love):  We have never see
diseases produced by chastity.

Mahabharata:  Just as fire blazes when fuel is poured on it, so
the sexual appetite is never satiated by indulgence.

Michaelangelo:  "Once, a friend of Michaelangelo complained, 'The
Virgin looks like a young girl, not like Christ's mother.'
'You must be unaware of the benefits of celibacy,' the sculptor
replied."

Milton:  The mind is its own place and in itself can make a
heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

Muhammad:  Thy worst enemy is thy nafs, which is between thy
legs.

Nietzsche:  Through the abuse of the sex force, man is more
diseased than any animal.
            Sexual license seems to be the unwritten code of
modern society.

Swami Nityananda:  Blessed and glorious is one who has vowed to

observe celibacy for the rest of his life!  Twice blessed and
glorious is he who sincerely struggles to uproot lust and attain
real purity!  Thrice blessed and glorious is he who has
completely conquered lust and attained pure devotional service!
All glories, all glories, all glories to such victorious souls!
May they forever inspire us.


Patanjali:  Energy is gained by the establishment of continence.


Plato:  The chief good is thought by the multitude to be sensory
pleasure.  Indeed, men are of the opinion that without bodily
pleasures, life is not worth living.  But bodily pleasures are
slavish, and the true philosopher abstains from them.
        There appears to be a need for some bold men who will say
outright what is best, oppose the mightiest lust, and follow
reason only.
        The greatest cause of crimes is lust.  The fire of sexual
lust kindles every species of wantonness.
        Due to defective knowledge, men err in their choice of
pleasures.
        Our body fills us with desires and passions and vain
imaginings and a host of frivolities.  But once having got rid of
the foolishness of the body, we shall be pure, and know the clear
light of truth.
        Is not philosophy nothing but the study of death?  True
philosophers are always occupied in the practice of dying.

Plotinus:  There are loftier beauties which in the sense-bound
life we are not granted to know.  To the vision of these we must
mount, leaving sensual life to its own lower place. Plotinus.

Pythagoras:  "'Fight to overcome thy foolish passions,'
Pythagoras told his students."Be sober and chaste.  Sex is always
harmful and not conducive to health.'
'When can I engage in sex?' one of his students asked.
'Whenever you want to be weaker than yourself,' Pythagoras
replied."
             Continence is the greatest wealth.

Schopenhauer:  No attained object of desire can give lasting
satisfaction; it can produce merely a fleeting gratification.
Desires last long; the demands are infinite; the satisfaction is
short.  The satisfied passion leads more often to unhappiness
than to happiness.  As long as we are given up to a throng of
desires, we can never have lasting happiness or peace.

Seneca:  Sensual pleasure is followed by pain, but it is a
characteristic of real joy that it never changes into its
opposite.
         Sexual desire has been given to man not for the
gratification of pleasure but for the continuance of the human
race.  When you have escaped the violence of this secret
destruction implanted in your very vitals, every other desire
will pass you by unharmed.  Carnal pleasure is a low act, brought
about by the agency of our inferior and baser members.  There is
nothing grand about it, nothing worthy of a man's nature.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 129:
   The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
   Is lust in action; and till action, lust
   Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
   Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
   Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;
   Past reason hunted, as a swallow's bait,
   On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
   Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
   Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
   A bliss in proof--and prov'd, a very woe;
   Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.
   All this he world well knows; yet none knows well
   To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Shankaracharya:  They who have cast away passion reach the
highest joy.

Socrates:  When sex desire leaves you, it's like being freed from
bondage to a madman.

Herbert Spencer:  Sexual relations unfavorable to the rearing of
offspring must tend towards degradation.

Spinoza:  Sooner than to promote love, lust readily passes into
hate.

Swedenborg:  In the progress of marriage among those who are
spiritual, the love of sex is exterminated.
             The spiritual man feels spiritual joy which is
superior to material pleasure, exceeding it a thousand times.

Tagore:  As long as our desires are in conflict with the
universal law we suffer pain.

"The Talmud":  There is a small organ in the human body which is
always hungry if one tries to satisfy it, and always satisfied if
one starves it. "The Talmud"

Tertulian, "Exhortation to Chastity":  What is profitable for a
time should always be practiced.  Then it will always be
profitable.  Shall one be willing only to abstain from what is
ordinarily deemed a pleasure for the sake of a victory in
wrestling and the like and be incapable of a similar abstinence
for the sake of the noblest of victories?  There are enough
sexual stoics in the world to prove by experience that continence
is not only possible but also practical.

Thoreau:  A man is rich in proportion to the number of things
which he can afford to let alone.
          Our life is frittered away by detail.  Simplify.
Simplify.

Tolstoy:  Sexual activity weakens man in his most essential

aspect: spiritual expression.
          Our animal desires have hidden us from our true life.
The real misery of man is that he self-obscured, lost in the
midst of his own desires.

C.J. Van Vliet, The Coiled Serpent:  Even where the tendency to a
habit is inborn it can be overcome, provided the mind begins to
see that the habit is undesirable.  The first requirement for
sexual normalcy is, therefore, a mental recognition that the
present sexual habits of the race are abnormal.  Then the
individual will either avoid to become addicted--or, if already
an addict, will gradually break away from those habits.

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