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abstinence
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  • She figured they'd probably talk to us about abstinence and protecting yourself from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and that led into the first of our frank talks about her past.†   (source)
  • It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.†   (source)
  • She didn't seem like the woman who ripped the cable box out of the wall or lectured us for hours on the virtues of abstinence.†   (source)
  • My abstinence felt noble because it was so very difficult.†   (source)
  • To the average person, such abstinence doesn't sound difficult, let alone heroic.†   (source)
  • We do not know where the tradition came from, only that it has been a ceremony of birth for generations (for me, it had been my great-aunt Plumer, a woman of virtue, abstinence and deep religious conviction.†   (source)
  • After a period of computer celibacy, she was suffering from massive cyber-abstinence.†   (source)
  • It is a non-sectarian program emphasizing the love of God and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and drug abstinence.†   (source)
  • But the president has been the picture of abstinence, neither smoking a cigar nor taking a sip of alcohol.†   (source)
  • Building is not done by abstaining from demolition; centuries of sitting and waiting in such abstinence will not raise one single girder for you to abstain from demolishing-and now you can no longer say to me, the builder: 'Produce, and feed us in exchange for our not destroying your production.'†   (source)
  • He spoke to Abra of the necessity for abstinence and decided that he would live a life of celibacy.†   (source)
  • Indeed, one third of AIDS prevention spending was funneled by law to abstinence-only education.†   (source)
  • " There's no question that the local schools should encourage abstinence for girls like Thabang.†   (source)
  • Florentino Ariza was never to understand how a few articles of penitential clothing could have hidden the drives of that wild mare who, choking on her own feverish desire, undressed him as she had never been able to undress her husband, who would have thought her perverse, and tried, with the confusion and innocence of five years of conjugal fidelity, to satisfy in a single assault the iron abstinence of her mourning.†   (source)
  • A society that depends upon years of rigid sexual abstinence for population control is consistent with my new theory.†   (source)
  • Fernanda carried a delicate calendar with small golden keys on which her spiritual adviser had marked in purple ink the dates of venereal abstinence.†   (source)
  • Abstinence is an ideal, but not always a realistic one, so being as safe as possible is the key—using protection every time, no matter what.†   (source)
  • Chippers reported little difficulty maintaining such casual abstinence and reportedly experienced almost no withdrawal symptoms when abstaining from smoking….†   (source)
  • After all, I had lectured some of them about safe sex and abstinence; maybe they were hesitant to confront me about my own behaviors.†   (source)
  • Studies on the impact of abstinence-only programs aren't conclusive and seem to depend to some extent on the ideology of those conducting the study.†   (source)
  • There is some evidence that abstinence education can be helpful, when paired with a discussion of condoms, contraception, and reproductive health.†   (source)
  • One of the premises of the abstinence-only campaign had been that Africa's AIDS problem was a consequence of promiscuity, but that may not have been true, particularly for African women.†   (source)
  • But the Bush program went beyond underwriting abstinence education; it insisted on "abstinence only" for young people, meaning no discussion of condoms in schools (although the Bush AIDS program did distribute condoms readily to high-risk groups, such as prostitutes and truck drivers in Africa).†   (source)
  • Conservatives, who have presumed that the key to preventing AIDS is abstinence-only education, and liberals, who have focused on distribution of condoms, should both note that the intervention that has tested most cost-effective in Africa is neither.†   (source)
  • That is untrue, and evidence from discordant couples (where one partner has HIV and the other doesn't) suggests that condoms are quite effective in preventing AIDS, albeit not as effective as abstinence.†   (source)
  • "4 "What deity does Amaterasu worship in abstinence in the Plain of High Heaven?†   (source)
  • Abstinence by nausea.†   (source)
  • I have practised abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.†   (source)
  • The Enemy's demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma; either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy.†   (source)
  • The years behind him were littered with similar surrenders - feast days and fast days and days of abstinence had been the first to go: then he had ceased to trouble more than occasionally about his breviary - and finally he had left it behind altogether at the port in one of his periodic attempts at escape.†   (source)
  • The frequency of the warnings and the continued abstinence of Mr B with respect to Hiroshima had made its citizens jittery; a rumour was going around that the Americans were saving something special for the city.†   (source)
  • The old woman prattled on and on, while the penitents stirred restlessly in the next stall and the horse whinnied, prattled of abstinence days broken, of evening prayers curtailed.†   (source)
  • Keep him wondering what pride or lack of faith has delivered him into your hands when a simple enquiry into what he has been eating or drinking for the last twenty-four hours would show him whence your ammunition comes and thus enable him by a very little abstinence to imperil your lines of communication.†   (source)
  • What they cared about was convincing Hans Castorp to renounce his abstinence.†   (source)
  • Why not try another leave of abstinence?†   (source)
  • It's truly marvelous—your great abstinence."†   (source)
  • "In a word," said Mercedes, "it was a way of assuring me that his abstinence was intended."†   (source)
  • It was the crown of a cheerful dinner after hours of anxiety and abstinence to have Snap Naab speak civilly to him, and to see him bow his head meekly as his father asked the blessing.†   (source)
  • Colia insisted, in discussing the matter with his mother, that all this was but the outcome of abstinence from drink, or perhaps of pining after Lebedeff, with whom up to this time the general had been upon terms of the greatest friendship; but with whom, for some reason or other, he had quarrelled a few days since, parting from him in great wrath.†   (source)
  • Three small whiskies had gone to his head and Gallaher's strong cigar had confused his mind, for he was a delicate and abstinent person.†   (source)
  • Why such unnatural abstinence?†   (source)
  • We do this at the risk of our lives and liberties, by the exercise of the virtues of courage, endurance, foresight, and abstinence—especially abstinence.†   (source)
  • At odd moments, no doubt, in the furthest recesses of his brain, where his determination had thrust it away, and thanks to the length of the interval, the three weeks' separation to which he had agreed, it was with pleasure that he would consider the idea that he would see Odette again on her return; but it was also with so little impatience that he began to ask himself whether he would not readily consent to the doubling of the period of so easy an abstinence.†   (source)
  • You wish a real leave of abstinence.†   (source)
  • The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost.†   (source)
  • …her again came back to him adorned with a novelty, a seductiveness, armed with a virulence, all of which long habit had enfeebled, but which had acquired new vigour during this privation, not of three days but of a fortnight (for a period of abstinence may be calculated, by anticipation, as having lasted already until the final date assigned to it), and had converted what had been, until then, a pleasure in store, which could easily be sacrificed, into an unlooked-for happiness which…†   (source)
  • Though many of Selden's friends would have called his parents poor, he had grown up in an atmosphere where restricted means were felt only as a check on aimless profusion: where the few possessions were so good that their rarity gave them a merited relief, and abstinence was combined with elegance in a way exemplified by Mrs. Selden's knack of wearing her old velvet as if it were new.†   (source)
  • The result was apt to be an irreducible combination of persons having no other quality in common than their abstinence from bridge, and the antagonisms developed in a group lacking the one taste which might have amalgamated them, were in this case aggravated by bad weather, and by the ill-concealed boredom of their host and hostess.†   (source)
  • …a distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing treats and benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced one of the finest young fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to achieve these things sooner or later; but his practical shrewdness told him that the means no such achievements could only lie for him in present abstinence and self-denial; there were certain milestones to be passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's debts.†   (source)
  • Sir Mulberry drank to recompense himself for his recent abstinence; the young lord, to drown his indignation; and the remainder of the party, because the wine was of the best and they had nothing to pay.†   (source)
  • This abstinence, so remarkable in an Indian, when he possessed the means of satisfying hunger, at length attracted the notice of Heyward.†   (source)
  • But I may as well say—en passant, as the French remark—that I myself—that is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy—am a strict total abstinence man; I never drink—†   (source)
  • …to the admiration of the throng of pilgrims and pray; it was another's to go naked and crawl around on all fours; it was another's to drag about with him, year in and year out, eighty pounds of iron; it was another's to never lie down when he slept, but to stand among the thorn-bushes and snore when there were pilgrims around to look; a woman, who had the white hair of age, and no other apparel, was black from crown to heel with forty-seven years of holy abstinence from water.†   (source)
  • To Dorothea this was adorable genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence.†   (source)
  • He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.†   (source)
  • But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course.†   (source)
  • I began to say to myself that I was exaggerating the importance of the document; that my uncle would surely not believe in it, that he would set it down as a mere puzzle; that if it came to the worst, we should lay violent hands on him and keep him at home if he thought on venturing on the expedition that, after all, he might himself discover the key of the cipher, and that then I should be clear at the mere expense of my involuntary abstinence.†   (source)
  • So many loathsome animals inhabited the prison, that their noise did not, in general, awake him; but whether abstinence had quickened his faculties, or whether the noise was really louder than usual, Edmond raised his head and listened.†   (source)
  • I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.†   (source)
  • I give you leave," returned Laurie, who enjoyed having someone to tease, after his long abstinence from his favorite pastime.†   (source)
  • Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and seemed at once particularly impressed and depressed by the instance last given of Mr. Bounderby's moral abstinence.†   (source)
  • He certainly wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be heartily sick of home before her visit ended; and that a little abstinence from the elegancies and luxuries of Mansfield Park would bring her mind into a sober state, and incline her to a juster estimate of the value of that home of greater permanence, and equal comfort, of which she had the offer.†   (source)
  • And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of execration, and the vision of violent death.†   (source)
  • He preserved this opinion even after the feast, with the remnants of which he repaired his own long abstinence; but when in the evening he made his master's bed, the chimeras of Planchet faded away.†   (source)
  • "You don't eat 'em," returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding his head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as if abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall.†   (source)
  • Having dispelled the cold, he turned eagerly to the smoking mess which was placed before him, and ate with a haste and an apparent relish, that seemed to betoken long abstinence from food.†   (source)
  • Brother Solomon and Sister Jane were rich, and the family candor and total abstinence from false politeness with which they were always received seemed to them no argument that their brother in the solemn act of making his will would overlook the superior claims of wealth.†   (source)
  • But when the time came to pay for his rosemary, this oil, and the wine, the only expense the master had incurred, as he had preserved a strict abstinence—while on the contrary, the yellow horse, by the account of the hostler at least, had eaten three times as much as a horse of his size could reasonably supposed to have done—d'Artagnan found nothing in his pocket but his little old velvet purse with the eleven crowns it contained; for as to the letter addressed to M. de Treville, it…†   (source)
  • The hermit was somewhat discountenanced by this observation; and, moreover, he made but a poor figure while gazing on the diminution of the pasty, on which his guest was making desperate inroads; a warfare in which his previous profession of abstinence left him no pretext for joining.†   (source)
  • …overseer (it was about a question of outdoor pay that he was having an interview with Lydgate), he was also asthmatic and had an increasing family: thus, from a medical point of view, as well as from his own, he was an important man; indeed, an exceptional grocer, whose hair was arranged in a flame-like pyramid, and whose retail deference was of the cordial, encouraging kind—jocosely complimentary, and with a certain considerate abstinence from letting out the full force of his mind.†   (source)
  • A formidable warrior, his thin and severe features retained the soldier's fierceness of expression; an ascetic bigot, they were no less marked by the emaciation of abstinence, and the spiritual pride of the self-satisfied devotee.†   (source)
  • And he went without shrinking through his abstinence from drugs, much sustained by application of the thermometer which implied the importance of his temperature, by the sense that he furnished objects for the microscope, and by learning many new words which seemed suited to the dignity of his secretions.†   (source)
  • The catastrophe was prevented by the clown Wamba, who, springing betwixt his master and Isaac, and exclaiming, in answer to the Prince's defiance, "Marry, that will I!" opposed to the beard of the Jew a shield of brawn, which he plucked from beneath his cloak, and with which, doubtless, he had furnished himself, lest the tournament should have proved longer than his appetite could endure abstinence.†   (source)
  • And so they lived in their prayers, and fastings, and great abstinence.†   (source)
  • Now gripping this, hefting a pair of spears, he joined the battle, formidable as some hill-bred lion, ravenous for meat after long abstinence.†   (source)
  • And when he went and said: Knights of poor faith and of wicked belief, these three things failed, charity, abstinence, and truth; therefore ye may not attain that high adventure of the Sangreal.†   (source)
  • Now will I tell you what betokeneth the hand with the candle and the bridle: that is to understand the Holy Ghost where charity is ever, and the bridle signifieth abstinence.†   (source)
  • For when they saw Sir Launcelot endure such penance, in prayers, and fastings, they took no force what pain they endured, for to see the noblest knight of the world take such abstinence that he waxed full lean.†   (source)
  • Some, as thou sawest, by violent stroke shall die; By fire, flood, famine, by intemperance more In meats and drinks, which on the earth shall bring Diseases dire, of which a monstrous crew Before thee shall appear; that thou mayest know What misery the inabstinence of Eve Shall bring on Men.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "in-" in inabstinence means not and reverses the meaning of abstinence. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
  • Both of us were feeling the mild and pleasant strain of abstinence, and now, safely removed from curious eyes and ears, we came together with an impact that made my lips and fingers tingle with a rush of blood.†   (source)
  • Abstinence, no falsehood, no gluttony, lust; The open air I sing, freedom, toleration, (Take here the mainest lesson—less from books—less from the schools,) The common day and night—the common earth and waters, Your farm—your work, trade, occupation, The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.†   (source)
  • Your stomachs are too young, And abstinence engenders maladies.†   (source)
  • Saint Augustine will that abstinence be done for virtue, and with patience.†   (source)
  • And so they lived in their prayers, and fastings, and great abstinence.†   (source)
  • Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence: the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency.†   (source)
  • …in this house was perfect master of his own time: and as he might at his pleasure satisfy all his appetites within the restrictions only of law, virtue, and religion; so he might, if his health required, or his inclination prompted him to temperance, or even to abstinence, absent himself from any meals, or retire from them, whenever he was so disposed, without even a sollicitation to the contrary: for, indeed, such sollicitations from superiors always savour very strongly of commands.†   (source)
  • *laymen*<13> We live in povert', and in abstinence, And borel folk in riches and dispence Of meat and drink, and in their foul delight.†   (source)
  • Now will I tell you what betokeneth the hand with the candle and the bridle: that is to understand the Holy Ghost where charity is ever, and the bridle signifieth abstinence.†   (source)
  • But the success has not hitherto been answerable, partly by some error in the quantum or composition, and partly by the perverseness of lads, to whom this bolus is so nauseous, that they generally steal aside, and discharge it upwards, before it can operate; neither have they been yet persuaded to use so long an abstinence, as the prescription requires.†   (source)
  • Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve, And peril great provoked, who thus hast dared, Had it been only coveting to eye That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence, Much more to taste it under ban to touch.†   (source)
  • I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,— A man of stricture and firm abstinence,— My absolute power and place here in Vienna, And he supposes me travell'd to Poland; For so I have strew'd it in the common ear, And so it is received.†   (source)
  • For they confesse it is no more, but a Constitution of the Church, that requireth in those holy Orders that continually attend the Altar, and administration of the Eucharist, a continuall Abstinence from women, under the name of continuall Chastity, Continence, and Purity.†   (source)
  • Not so, not so: his life is parallel'd Even with the stroke and line of his great justice; He doth with holy abstinence subdue That in himself which he spurs on his power To qualify in others: were he meal'd With that which he corrects, then were he tyrannous; But this being so, he's just.†   (source)
  • And when he went and said: Knights of poor faith and of wicked belief, these three things failed, charity, abstinence, and truth; therefore ye may not attain that high adventure of the Sangreal.†   (source)
  • Against gluttony the remedy is abstinence, as saith Galen; but that I hold not meritorious, if he do it only for the health of his body.†   (source)
  • Abstinence, saith he, is little worth, but if [unless] a man have good will thereto, and but it be enforced by patience and by charity, and that men do it for God's sake, and in hope to have the bliss in heaven.†   (source)
  • For when they saw Sir Launcelot endure such penance, in prayers, and fastings, they took no force what pain they endured, for to see the noblest knight of the world take such abstinence that he waxed full lean.†   (source)
  • As well in ghost* as body chaste was she: *mind, spirit For which she flower'd in virginity, With all humility and abstinence, With alle temperance and patience, With measure* eke of bearing and array.†   (source)
  • But hearken, lordings, one word, I you pray, That all the sovreign actes, dare I say, Of victories in the Old Testament, Through very God that is omnipotent, Were done in abstinence and in prayere: Look in the Bible, and there ye may it lear.†   (source)
  • The fellows of abstinence be temperance, that holdeth the mean in all things; also shame, that escheweth all dishonesty [indecency, impropriety], sufficiency, that seeketh no rich meats nor drinks, nor doth no force of [sets no value on] no outrageous apparelling of meat; measure [moderation] also, that restraineth by reason the unmeasurable appetite of eating; soberness also, that restraineth the outrage of drink; sparing also, that restraineth the delicate ease to sit long at meat,…†   (source)
  • Our Lord Jesus, as Holy Writ deviseth,* *narrates Gave us example of fasting and prayeres: Therefore we mendicants, we sely* freres, *simple, lowly Be wedded to povert' and continence, To charity, humbless, and abstinence, To persecution for righteousness, To weeping, misericorde,* and to cleanness.†   (source)
  • Aaron, that had the temple in governance, And eke the other priestes every one, Into the temple when they shoulde gon To praye for the people, and do service, They woulde drinken in no manner wise No drinke, which that might them drunken make, But there in abstinence pray and wake, Lest that they died: take heed what I say — But* they be sober that for the people pray — *unless Ware that, I say — no more: for it sufficeth.†   (source)
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