Wearing coarse, hard cloth, and eating coarse food is not abstinence from this world; abstinence from this world is only lack of desire  Buddha    The abstinence of the ignorant is worth less than a sixteenth part of those who have integrated all truths  Buddha    An un-intelligent and abrupt denial of sensual pleasures and a blind following of spiritual values results in suppression in an individual and this suppression for a period of time leads him to bitterness, frustration and cynicism in life  Swami Chinmayananda    God is not pleased by obstinate penance nor by many religious garbs. He who fashioned the vessels of the body and poured into it His ambrosial gifts will only be satisfied with man's love and service  Guru Nanak    By going on pilgrimages, practicing austerities, performing acts of formal compassion and charity, one obtains little honor before him, if at all  Guru Nanak    By taking to countless outward rites and rituals, we cannot escape the inner fire of attachment, lust etc.,  Guru Nanak    Reading the Vedas, making offering to priests or sacrifices to gods, self mortification by heat or cold, and many such penances performed for the sake of immortality do not cleanse the man who is freed from delusions.  Buddha    Neither abstinence from fish nor flesh, nor going naked, nor shaving the head, nor wearing matted hair, nor dressing in a rough garment, nor covering with dirt, nor sacrificing to fire, will cleanse a man who is not free from delusions  Buddha    Mere abstinence, control or discipline will not bring tranquillity, but only dull the mind, making it insensitive and confined  J.Krishnamurti