self-constraint

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Serial television mostly puts its directors into a box, too—and, like movie-franchise boxes, it involves a defining-down of artistic freedom, whether by executive dictates or by self-constraint in advance.

From The New Yorker • Jun. 9, 2023

And for Buttigieg, who didn’t come out until age 33, that’s a lot of years of unnatural self-constraint.

From Washington Post • Feb. 20, 2020

The duty of virtue is essentially distinguished from the duty of justice in this respect; that it is morally possible to be externally compelled to the latter, whereas the former rests on free self-constraint only.

From The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics by Abbott, Thomas Kingsmill

Now this mutually opposed self-constraint and the inevitability of it makes us recognize the incomprehensible property of freedom.

From The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics by Abbott, Thomas Kingsmill

People no longer think about self-constraint, and self-adjustment, and of keeping up their dignity under all circumstances, and of subjecting the weaknesses of human nature to the exigencies of rank.

From The Ancient Regime by Durand, John