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

As cold and as unmoved as a statue, Pascal seemed quite unconscious of the effect of the message he had brought—quite unconscious of Valorsay's sufferings and self-constraint.

From Baron Trigault's Vengeance by Gaboriau, Émile

Again, the real self, gracious and beautiful, may strive to express itself through a set of faculties that are hardened and narrowed by decades of self-constraint on the part of himself and his ancestors.

From Social Life or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society by Cooke, Maud C.

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