quotations about temptation
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Biographical Studies
It is the small temptations which undermine integrity unless we watch and pray and never think them too trivial to be resisted.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Rose in Bloom
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
BOB DYLAN
"Every Grain of Sand"
As a man purifies his heart, temptation ceases, for when a certain unlawful desire has been taken out of the heart, the object which formerly appealed to it can no longer do so, but becomes dead and powerless, for there is nothing left in the heart that can respond to it.
JAMES ALLEN
Above Life's Turmoil
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
Could'st thou boast, O child of weakness!
O'er the sons of wrong and strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life?
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
What the Voice Said
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
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
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
Temptation is woman's weapon and man's excuse.
H. L. MENCKEN
Mencken Chrestomathy
It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of; for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in this field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.
THOMAS MERTON
No Man Is an Island
In temptations and trials the progress of a man is measured; in them opportunity for merit and virtue is made more manifest.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Imitation of Christ
To avoid temptation, yield.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Every time the enemy throws us off our guard, and we give way to temptation, he gains so much; he weakens us and strengthens himself; when we resist temptation, it strengthens the Saints and weakens the enemy.
BRIGHAM YOUNG
Journal of Discourses
Soul's Castle fell at one blast of temptation,
But many a worm had pierced the foundation.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
"Blackberries"
Some men flee from temptation, but others just crawl away from it hoping it will overtake them.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
We find many things, to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
OSCAR WILDE
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The difference between those whom the world esteems as good and those whom it condemns as bad, is in many cases little else than that the former have been better sheltered from temptation.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth