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I like restraint, if it doesn't go too far.

quote by Mae West
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Paradise Lost: Book 09

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring

[...] Read more

poem by John Milton
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Invitation to the Voyage (L'Invitation au Voyage)

Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? —
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
— Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

poem by Charles Baudelaire from Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), translated by Edna Saint Vincent Millay
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They Fuss It to Be Cut Up

Some just can't let it be!
With a letting go.
They want to beat it to then leave it.
Come back,
To again...
Service it with lip.
As if 'whatever' it is...
Exists in their minds,
Breathes...
As if it lives.

They cuss it to be cut up.
They fuss it to be cut up.

People aren't grateful to receive a gift.
Or appreciate it without examining the value of it.

They cuss it to be cut up.
They fuss it to be cut up.

Whining without restraint!

They cuss it to be cut up.
They fuss it to be cut up.

Complaining and showing no shame.

They cuss it to be cut up.
They fuss it to be cut up.

Some just can't let it be!
With a letting go.
They want to beat it to then leave it.
Come back,
To again...
Service it with lip.
As if 'whatever' it is...
Exists in their minds,
Breathes...
As if it lives.

They cuss it to be cut up.
People are bold.
They fuss it to be cut up.
People are cold.

Whining without restraint!

They cuss it to be cut up.
People are bold.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The place where we don't agree is on whether there should be some restraint on insurance companies and whether they should be allowed to run wild. We believe there should be some restraint; some on the other side don't think so.

quote by David Axelrod
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Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

quote by Henry B. Adams
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M57

Baby, put your hand, you wanna be with someone, cant afford to be
Lay your hand with me, Im too lazy to put my hand,
I wanna be somewhere, cant afford to stay
Let me drive you away, girl, because
Lately, were goin through a run of bad luck
Shes goin crazy, she only thinks the worst about us
I said please, please, please chill out,
It aint exactly easy for me
More than that, its for you, lay your head, girl
Lately I put my hand, I had to do something I couldnt afford to do
But its all I love to you, to be lazy
Put your hand, you wanna be somewhere you cant afford to stay
Let me drive you away, because
Lately, were goin through a run of bad luck
Shes goin crazy, she only thinks the worst about us
I said please, please, please chill out,
It aint exactly easy for me
More than that, its for you,
When I look back, how things have changed
With patience, thought and restraint
I never thought it would go
Lay your head with me
Lay your head with me
Ooh, because
Lately, were goin through a run of bad luck
Shes goin crazy, she only thinks the worst about us
I said please, please, please chill out,
It aint exactly easy for me
Or in that case, for you,
When I look back, how things have changed
With patience, thought and restraint
I never thought it would go
Lay your head with me
Lay your head with me
Lay your head with me
Lay your head with me

song performed by Gomez
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Sacred And Profane Love

In the dark shadow of the windless pines
Whose gloomy glory lines the obsequies
Of the gaunt Claudian Aqueduct along
The lone Campagna to sepulchral Rome,
A Northern youth, companionless, reclined,
Pondering on records of the Roman Past,
Kingdom, Republic, Empire, longwhile gone.
Hard-by, through marble tomb revivified,
Rippled and bubbled water crystalline,
Inwelling from the far-off Sabine hills.
When lo! upon the tomb's deep-dinted rim
Slowly there broadened on his gaze two shapes,
Material embodiment of those
The great Venetian in resplendent hues
Upon the canvas lastingly portrayed,
Christened by fame Profane and Sacred Love.
One was in rich habiliments arrayed,
With dimpling folds about her rounded limbs,
And heaving corset of embossed brocade,
Compressing beaker for her brimming breasts.
Jewels were in her hair, jewels entwined
Themselves round her columnar throat, and thus
On him she gazed unshrinkingly, and seemed
Sensuous seduction irresistible.
The other in nude innocency clad,
All save veined vineleaf cincture round her waist,
Sate with her gaze averted, and beheld
Only her image trembling in the wave.
Her had he fain accosted, but the dread
Of violating her aloofness checked
The movement of his mind, and held him mute.
So to the One resplendently enrobed,
Familiarly fearless as herself,
He turned, albeit his thought was otherwhere,
As elsewhere his desire, and boldly said:
``If with your earthly seeming be conjoined
Gift and capacity of earthly speech,
Speak to me, earthly, an you will, and break
The all too spacious silence with your voice.''
Her curving lips, whose fulness seemed to pledge
Intoxicating kisses, drooped apart,
And to her orbs upsurged volcanic fire,
As she with prompt unhesitating voice,
Commanding more than musical, rejoined.
Whereat that Other ever and anon
Would for a moment turn to him her face,
To note the interpretation of his heart
And wavering of his will, and then once more
Her look averted to the Sabine hills,
And cloudless vault of overarching Heaven.

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
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Gotham - Book II

How much mistaken are the men who think
That all who will, without restraint may drink,
May largely drink, e'en till their bowels burst,
Pleading no right but merely that of thirst,
At the pure waters of the living well,
Beside whose streams the Muses love to dwell!
Verse is with them a knack, an idle toy,
A rattle gilded o'er, on which a boy
May play untaught, whilst, without art or force,
Make it but jingle, music comes of course.
Little do such men know the toil, the pains,
The daily, nightly racking of the brains,
To range the thoughts, the matter to digest,
To cull fit phrases, and reject the rest;
To know the times when Humour on the cheek
Of Mirth may hold her sports; when Wit should speak,
And when be silent; when to use the powers
Of ornament, and how to place the flowers,
So that they neither give a tawdry glare,
'Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air;'
To form, (which few can do, and scarcely one,
One critic in an age, can find when done)
To form a plan, to strike a grand outline,
To fill it up, and make the picture shine
A full and perfect piece; to make coy Rhyme
Renounce her follies, and with Sense keep time;
To make proud Sense against her nature bend,
And wear the chains of Rhyme, yet call her friend.
Some fops there are, amongst the scribbling tribe,
Who make it all their business to describe,
No matter whether in or out of place;
Studious of finery, and fond of lace,
Alike they trim, as coxcomb Fancy brings,
The rags of beggars, and the robes of kings.
Let dull Propriety in state preside
O'er her dull children, Nature is their guide;
Wild Nature, who at random breaks the fence
Of those tame drudges, Judgment, Taste, and Sense,
Nor would forgive herself the mighty crime
Of keeping terms with Person, Place, and Time.
Let liquid gold emblaze the sun at noon,
With borrow'd beams let silver pale the moon;
Let surges hoarse lash the resounding shore,
Let streams meander, and let torrents roar;
Let them breed up the melancholy breeze,
To sigh with sighing, sob with sobbing trees;
Let vales embroidery wear; let flowers be tinged
With various tints; let clouds be laced or fringed,
They have their wish; like idle monarch boys,
Neglecting things of weight, they sigh for toys;

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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Is You is or is You Ain't?

When Washington crossed the Delaware
His dear grand mummy made him swear
To beat those redcoats without restraint.
She said “Is you is or is you ain’t? ”

Now George kinda worried ‘bout the things he’d done.
There were all those bloody battles that he’d won.
He hadn’t always been exactly a saint
But then there was “Is you is or is you? ”

So off he rode into the heat of battle.
Suddenly a cannon ball yanked him from his saddle. When he felt the bump on his head he wanted to faint,
He couldn’t cause there was “Is you is or is you ain’t? ”

Now as the war was turning in favor of George,
He met an old enemy from Valley Forge.
He rode up to him and without restraint,
Said, “Was you is…but now you ain’t! ”

poem by Gregory Huyette
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Bosnia Tune

As you pour yourself a scotch
Crush a roach or check your watch
As your hands adjust your tie people die

In the towns with funny names
Hit by bullets, caught in flames
By and large not knowing why people die

And in small places you don't know of
Yet big for having no chance to scream
Or say good-bye people die

Chorus: La, la... Let me know

People die as you elect
New apostles of neglect, self restraint
Whereby people die Too far off to practice love
For thy neighbour, brother Slav
Where your cherubs dread to fly people die

Chorus...

While the statues disagree
Cain's version, history for its fuel tends to buy
Those who die

As you watch the athletes score
Or check your latest statement
Or sing your child a lullaby people die

Time, whose sharp, bloodthirsty quill
Parts the killed from those who kill
Will pronounce the latter tribe
As your type.

2nd Version:

As you pour yourself a scotch,
crush a roach, or scratch your crotch,
as your hand adjusts your tie,
people die.
In the towns with funny names,
hit by bullets, caught in flames,
by and large not knowing why,
people die.
In small places you don't know
of, yet big for having no
chance to scream or say good-bye,
people die.
People die as you elect

[...] Read more

poem by Joseph Brodsky
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A Life Of Self-Restraint

RESTRAINT becomes a wall
between us, and i have kept
myself behind this thick wall,

always loving you, but always
denying it,

i cease to be a dropp of water,
neither moss,

every layer of my days
covers this softness making

another rock, and i am fortified
into another roadblock

to my dreams, it is here that
indifference hardens

into a fortress of dignity,
which the ocean even has not fathomed

this is it, this is it,
denial, restraint, punishment, redemption

you drive me into a destiny
you look straight as i look at you

passionately.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Rokeby: Canto VI.

I.
The summer sun, whose early power
Was wont to gild Matilda's bower,
And rouse her with his matin ray
Her duteous orisons to pay,
That morning sun has three times seen
The flowers unfold on Rokeby green,
But sees no more the slumbers fly
From fair Matilda's hazel eye;
That morning sun has three times broke
On Rokeby's glades of elm and oak,
But, rising from their sylvan screen,
Marks no grey turrets' glance between.
A shapeless mass lie keep and tower,
That, hissing to the morning shower,
Can but with smouldering vapour pay
The early smile of summer day.
The peasant, to his labour bound,
Pauses to view the blacken'd mound,
Striving, amid the ruin'd space,
Each well-remember'd spot to trace.
That length of frail and fire-scorch'd wall
Once screen'd the hospitable hall;
When yonder broken arch was whole,
‘Twas there was dealt the weekly dole;
And where yon tottering columns nod,
The chapel sent the hymn to God.
So flits the world's uncertain span
Nor zeal for God, nor love for man,
Gives mortal monuments a date
Beyond the power of Time and Fate.
The towers must share the builder's doom;
Ruin is theirs, and his a tomb:
But better boon benignant Heaven
To Faith and Charity has given,
And bids the Christian hope sublime
Transcend the bounds of Fate and Time.

II.
Now the third night of summer came,
Since that which witness'd Rokeby's flame.
On Brignall cliffs and Scargill brake
The owlet's homilies awake,
The bittern scream'd from rush and flag,
The raven slumber'd on his crag,
Forth from his den the otter drew,
Grayling and trout their tyrant knew,
As between reed and sedge he peers,
With fierce round snout and sharpen'd ears
Or, prowling by the moonbeam cool,

[...] Read more

poem by Sir Walter Scott
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Alcide

Walking with Jesus the slow,
behind the beat. Mr. Resistance.
Mr. Ohm, Mr. Exactly Lame.

By some reluctance, some
restraint, if it be a restraint,
by some undertow and stutter,

the halt and lame can strut.
You can hear it yourself. Buy
a few records and think how big

a bass is to a small boy,
his fingers bleeding to grow deft.
Bandages are for amateurs

and they blur the tone, that habit
a bassist and his bass conspire,
the way a couple learns a stride
though the man's taller by a foot.

poem by William Matthews
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Vaudracour And Julia

O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus
My story may begin) O balmy time,
In which a love-knot on a lady's brow
Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!
To such inheritance of blessed fancy
(Fancy that sports more desperately with minds
Than ever fortune hath been known to do)
The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years
Whose progress had a little overstepped
His stripling prime. A town of small repute,
Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne,
Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a Maid
Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit
With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock,
Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock,
From which her graces and her honours sprung:
And hence the father of the enamoured Youth,
With haughty indignation, spurned the thought
Of such alliance.--From their cradles up,
With but a step between their several homes,
Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
And petty quarrels, had grown fond again;
Each other's advocate, each other's stay;
And, in their happiest moments, not content,
If more divided than a sportive pair
Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth
Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight.
Thus, not without concurrence of an age
Unknown to memory, was an earnest given
By ready nature for a life of love,
For endless constancy, and placid truth;
But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay
Reserved, had fate permitted, for support
Of their maturer years, his present mind
Was under fascination;--he beheld
A vision, and adored the thing he saw.
Arabian fiction never filled the world
With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements,
Before his eyes, to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
Her chamber-window did surpass in glory
The portals of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him:--pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, overblest to move

[...] Read more

poem by William Wordsworth
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The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

quote by Theodore Roosevelt
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It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.

quote by George Bernard Shaw
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In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry.

Jane Austen in Mansfield Park
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The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-restraint not to meddle with how they do their jobs.

anonym
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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness; whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.

quote by Smiles
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In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war, we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint.

quote by Lyndon B. Johnson
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