Self-restraint and sacrifice

It may be that the taste for self-restraint which these creeds, however false, have instilled in mankind has been of some use in strengthening the human race.

For the strength of the generic and individual character consists chiefly in the capacity to sacrifice the present to the future, to scorn the temptations of an ephemeral pleasure for a more distant and lasting satisfaction.

The more this faculty is exercised, the more exalted and strong becomes the character; and the highest heroism is attained by those who, in order to preserve or win liberty and truth for other, perhaps distant, ages, renounce the pleasures of life, and even life itself.

© James George Frazer “The Golden Bough”