quotations about temptation
Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.
GEORGE ORWELL
Reflections on Gandhi
Temptation hath a music for all ears.
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
"Extract"
Temptation is woman's weapon and man's excuse.
H. L. MENCKEN
Mencken Chrestomathy
It is not the great temptations that ruin us; it is the little ones.
JOHN W. DE FOREST
Seacliff, or The Mystery of the Westervelts
There's a lesson in every temptation.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
The devil and temptations also afford us occasion to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without these we should never understand them, however diligently we read and listened to them.
MARTIN LUTHER
"Of God's Word", Table Talk
When you flee temptation be sure you don't leave a forwarding address.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour.... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Jane Eyre
Get thee behind me, Satan.
BIBLE
Matthew 16:23
Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
"How to Reform Mankind", Works
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.
RITA MAE BROWN
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
If you will tell me when God permits a Christian to lay aside his armour, I will tell you when Satan has left off temptation. Like the old knights in war time, we must sleep with helmet and breastplate buckled on, for the arch-deceiver will seize our first unguarded hour to make us his prey.
CHARLES H. SPURGEON
Morning and Evening
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love's Labour's Lost
Bearing up against temptations and prevailing over them, is the very thing wherein the whole life of religion consists; 'Tis the trial which God puts upon us in this world, by which we are to make evidence of our love and obedience to Him, and of our fitness to be made members of His kingdom.
SAMUEL CLARKE
attributed, Works, Containing Sermons on Several Subjects, Volume 2
The man who loves and seeks the excitement of temptation, shows that he is restrained from sin by fear, and not by principle--that while his life is on the side of virtue, his affections lean to vice.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
Gold-foil, Hammered from Popular Proverbs
There are those who say that temptation can be barricaded beyond the door. The ones who think that stray desires can be driven out of the heart like the moneychangers from the temple. Maybe they can, if you patrol your weak points day and night, don't look, don't smell, don't dream.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
The source and cause of all temptation is in the inward desire; that being purified or eliminated, outward objects and extraneous powers are utterly powerless to move the soul to sin or to temptation.
JAMES ALLEN
Above Life's Turmoil
So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay
To have tricked temptation and turned it away,
But wait, my friend, for a different day;
Wait till you want to want to!
EDMUND VANCE COOKE
Desire