quotations about temptation
There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Satan tempts the ambitious man with a crown, the sanguine man with beauty, the covetous man with a wedge of gold; he provides savory meat, such as the sinner loves.
T. WATSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.
PASCAL
attributed, Day's Collacon
If you want to prevent short-term temptations from derailing important long-term goals, you can change the way you think about those temptations. Focusing on the specifics of those temptations--particularly their desirable characteristics--makes it harder to resist those temptations. Thinking about the temptations abstractly, though, makes them less likely to engage your motivation to act. And that helps you to continue to do things that will help you to achieve those long-term goals.
ART MARKMAN
"Note to Self: It Is Easiest to Avoid Abstract Temptations", Psychology Today, April 14, 2017
Honest bread is very well--it's the butter that makes the temptation.
DOUGLAS JERROLD
The Catspaw
Temptation would be a lot easier to avoid if we didn't meet it in such gay company.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The temptations are everywhere -- on the Internet, in the family medicine cabinet, and on the street.
HATTIE BERNSTEIN
"What are your kids hiding in their rooms?", Boston Globe, February 24, 2017
Temptations lead you to hide from the Lord and you go off with your fault, with your sin, with your corruption, far from the Lord.
POPE FRANCIS
Mass at Santa Marta, February 10, 2017
'Tis no sin to be tempted, but to be overcome.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
G. C. LICHTENBERG
Aphorisms
The harder a temptation is to resist, the more you think about it and vacillate. That uncertainty is part of the process of growing.
RAP MONSTER
"BTS Talks Meaning of 'WINGS' And What They Hope To Achieve With Their 2nd Album", Soompi, October 10, 2016
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Maxims for Revolutionists
The most formidable attribute of temptation is its increasing power, its accelerating ratio of velocity. Every act of repetition increases power, diminishes resistance. It is like the letting out of waters--where a drop can go, a river can go. Whoever yields to temptation, subjects himself to the law of falling bodies.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
There is no state so holy, no place so secret that temptations and trials will not come. Man is never safe from them as long as he lives, for they come from within us -- in sin we were born. When one temptation or trial passes, another comes; we shall always have something to suffer because we have lost the state of original blessedness.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Imitation of Christ
Temptations come to us because we are open to them. Perhaps we don't want to be delivered from temptation, at least certain ones. Sometimes we are like little Richard who was told by his mother to come straight home from school and not to stop at the baseball field. After school, Richard decided to carry his ball and glove with him just in case he was tempted.
RAYMOND MAHER
"Don't sit near the fire if your head is made of butter", The Battlefords News-Optimist, March 16, 2017
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
ALEXANDER POPE
Moral Essays
The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance.
LAURENCE J. PETER
Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times
Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought.
MARGARET OLIPHANT
Miss Marjoribanks
Temptations are an heavy burden; too heavy for any to bear, if God did not strengthen them. Tempted souls wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with Principalities and Powers; and therefore they need greater strength than their own.
WILLIAM NOTCUTT
A Treatise of Temptations
Many a man is virtuous because he is neither clever enough to avoid temptation nor wise enough to yield to it.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes