To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.
Aleister Crowley
Much of my experience with language was formed in the church, which has an oral tradition. There are lots of repetitions in prayers and song refrains. There's a sense of incantation, that if you call not once and not twice but for a third time, the spirit appears.
Alice McDermott
After a long run of almost thirty years, you get to the point where you say, 'These are my concerns.' It's not so much this is what I set out to claim - it is a kind of refrain.
An opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level, you need to refrain from activities so as to be able to express this power.
Andrea Bocelli
The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
Aristotle
That does not mean that we must forego just and fair criticism, or refrain from opposition to policies which are debatable or which do not command our approval.
Bainbridge Colby
We must not demonstrate any arrogance, and we must refrain from any irrational or undemocratic behavior.
Chen Shui-bian
I refrain from lots of things I love, like cheese and carbs. I eat plenty of greens every day, my favorite being watercress.
Chloe Sevigny
Eric Clapton's scales - when he comes off a high note and it's time for a refrain or a little bit of a rest, he peals off scales going downwards that are so good it's unbelievable.
Chris Rea
I try to refrain from the alarmist statement, really I do. It's bad for the liver and worries the dog, who has plenty enough to worry about as it is.
Christopher Buckley
You needn't love your enemy, but if you refrain from telling lies about him, you are doing well enough.
E. W. Howe
I've been fascinated over the years by the way refrains work. Think, say, of the refrains in Yeats' ballads. Ideally, each time the refrain comes back in a poem, it is both the same and different. It works by counterpoint and reiteration. It accrues meaning.
Edward Hirsch
'Liberty Brass' is a small machine that unfolds in a single unpunctuated wave, which is interrupted by the rotating sign, the refrain. Each part is meant to do its work in relentless progression.
If you want people to take action,you must refrain from giving them the answers.
Eliyahu Goldratt
Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can't. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women.
Erica Jong
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Evelyn Waugh
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.
Germaine Greer
I consider anybody who weighs over 200 pounds fat, and time was when I could not refrain from telling such people so.
Gloria Swanson
If policymakers are serious about avoiding a society of TV 'haves and have-nots,' they should refrain from policies that favor pay-TV operators over the providers of our nation's only free and local communications system: over-the-air broadcasting.
Gordon Smith
Never forget, the real secret of giving advice is this: Once you've given it, don't concern yourself with whether it is followed or not, and refrain from saying 'I told you so.'
It's not good if owners of sports teams are talking to sports journalists, bypassing the manager. That goes in the wrong direction wherever it happens. Therefore, I'll refrain from doing this at all.
I refrained from writing another one, thinking to myself: Never mind, I will prove that I am able to become a greater scientist than some of you, even without the title of doctor.
Child! Do not throw this book about; refrain from the unholy pleasure of cutting all the pictures out.
I sedulously refrained from doing anything that would incite slaves to run away from their masters.
Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.
When I'm forced by circumstances to be in a crowd of prisoners, it's all I can do to refrain from attack.
Children and scientists share an outlook on life. 'If I do this, what will happen?' is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist.
When a hot woman walks by, and we ask if she's your type, refrain from saying things like, 'Nah, I like a woman with a little meat on her bones' as you give us a squeeze.
I have lived so long among people who do not understand me, been so long accustomed to refrain and disguise myself for fear of being laughed at, that I have grown as difficult to come at as a snail in a shell; and what is worse, I cannot come out of my shell when I wish it.
If Ambassador Grenell is unwilling to refrain from political statements, he should be recalled immediately.
As a musician, I have always refrained from criticizing another artist.
We will never abdicate the security of the United States to a foreign country or refrain from taking action when appropriate. But we cannot ignore the reality that cooperative counterterrorism activities are a key to our national defense.
I think I'm going to refrain from criticizing Apple too much. I mean, that's been a pretty great company.
Never stray from life's purpose. Refrain from counting someone else's blessings instead of your own.
I think for more than half of my career, I have refrained from talking to the media.
One of the left's favorite refrains is falsely caricaturing Republican candidates as 'racist' and 'xenophobic,' throwing out 'dog whistles' to fuel racial sentiments.
In Syria, while secretary of state, Clinton watched as United Nations resolution after U.N. resolution failed. She accomplished nothing except to repeat the refrain, 'Assad must go.'
Monkeys who very sensibly refrain from speech, lest they should be set to earn their livings.
There are a billion songs that I've heard and said, 'I don't even care to have an opinion about it,' but if I have to hear a snippet of the refrain of 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' once, it'll get stuck in my head, and that drives me crazy.
Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we have lost that ideal.
To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner.
I can, of course, think what I want, just like everyone else. I simply have to refrain from saying everything I think.
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
To refrain from all injustice renders us also humane.
The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.
For us, holding on to religious rules, and following them, and refraining from what's forbidden, and being diligent with our duties, what do we call that? That's what we call freedom.
While no Muslim worthy of his name would lose his respect for God, the Prophet Muhammad, and other symbols of Islam, he might well refrain from using legal prosecution or violent reaction to those who do not show the same respect. My basis for this claim is nothing other than the holiest source of Islam, the Quran.
I am a very shy person who is just close to himself. So I would refrain from talking about my personal life.
