1 To abstain from threats and injurious language, is, methinks, one of the wisest precautions a man can use.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContext Highlight In BOOK 2: CHAPTER XXVI. 2 From such conspiracies, therefore, as are directed against more heads than one, all should abstain; for no good is to be got from them, whether for ourselves, for our country, or for any one else.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContext Highlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER VI. 3 It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.
The Prince By Niccolo MachiavelliContext Highlight In CHAPTER XIX — THAT ONE SHOULD AVOID BEING DESPISED AND HA... 4 Satisfied that the cause was now on a footing the most proper and hopeful, Sir Thomas resolved to abstain from all farther importunity with his niece, and to shew no open interference.
5 I was careful, however, to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them, and in the course of a day or two things got back to the old footing.
6 He promised to abstain from smoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member.
7 Boris, speaking with deliberation, told them in pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and the court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his own about the facts he was recounting.
8 But I am not now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the question.
9 He exerted preterhuman self-denial in abstaining from finishing him completely; but getting out of breath, he finally desisted, and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle.
10 There were at the time as many reasons for the step as against it, and there was no overbalancing consideration to outweigh his invariable rule of abstaining when in doubt.
11 He refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island of Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperor in his diocese during the Hundred Days.
Les Misérables 1 By Victor HugoContext Highlight In BOOK 1: CHAPTER XI—A RESTRICTION 12 He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou.
Les Misérables 5 By Victor HugoContext Highlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER IX—MARIUS PRODUCES ON SOME ONE WHO IS A JUDGE OF ... 13 In the meanwhile, he abstained from touching that money.
Les Misérables 5 By Victor HugoContext Highlight In BOOK 9: CHAPTER I—PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HA... 14 Whether or not Venn abstained from riding thither because he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily have been guessed from her proceedings about two months later in the same year.
Return of the Native By Thomas HardyContext Highlight In BOOK 6: 2 Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road 15 That I did not lift my arm a moment later does not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then.