Temptation Quotes
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The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil. (Quote by - Thomas Malthus)
Judges need to restrict themselves to the proper resolution of the case before them. They need to avoid the temptation to set broad policy. (Quote by - Mike DeWine)
When tempted to be unfaithful, the intellectual woman will try to inspire her husband with indifference, the sentimental woman with hatred, and the passionate woman with disgust. (Quote by - Honore de Balzac)
Why resist temptation? There will always be more. (Quote by - Don Herold)
Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body. (Quote by - H. L. Mencken)
The time for reasoning is before we have approached near enough to the forbidden fruit to look at it and admire. (Quote by - Margaret Percival)
The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. (Quote by - Thomas Merton)
Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. (Quote by - W B Yeats)
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. (Quote by - Mae West)
He who is not tempted, what does he know? And he who is not tried, what are the things he knows? (Quote by - Bible)
We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself! (Quote by - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once. (Quote by - F. H. Bradley)
The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders. (Quote by - Georg C. Lichtenberg)
Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you. (Quote by - Joey Adams)
It is opportunity that makes the thief. (Quote by - Seneca)
If yon wish to be like the gods on earth, to be free in the realms of the dead, pluck not the fruit from the garden! In appearance it may glisten to the eye; but the perishable pleasure of possession quickly avenges the curse of curiosity. (Quote by - Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller)
Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Do not give dalliance too much rein; the strongest oaths are straw to the fire in the blood. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Things forbidden have a secret charm. (Quote by - Tacitus)
In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me. (Quote by - Robert Herrick)
Knowledge of God's Word is a bulwark against deception, temptation, accusation, even persecution. (Quote by - Edwin Louis Cole)
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. (Quote by - Ralph Waldo Emerson)
One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception - at least some of the time, incompetent or crazy. (Quote by - John Gardner)
A corner draft fluttered the flame, and the white fever of temptation, upswept its angel wings that cast, a cruciform shadow. (Quote by - Boris Pasternak)
O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook: most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
There are temptations which strong exercise best enables us to resist. (Quote by - Sir John Lubbock)
He who cannot resist temptation is not a man. (Quote by - Horace Mann)
He who has no mind to trade with the Devil should be so wise as to keep from his shop. (Quote by - Bishop Robert South)
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. (Quote by - Augustus William Hare)
By and large the United States has been able to resist the temptation to close its doors to the world. (Quote by - Roger Mahony)
About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you're fighting temptation. (Quote by - Tom Wilson)
One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers. (Quote by - James Russell Lowell)
Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature. (Quote by - Samuel Johnson)
The virtue which has never been attacked by temptation is deserving of no monument. (Quote by - Mademoiselle Madeleine de Scuderi)
The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry. (Quote by - Henry A. Kissinger)
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality. (Quote by - James A. Michener)
We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation. (Quote by - William Hazlitt)
Humanly speaking, there is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury, and if he is overcome, you share his guilt. (Quote by - Samuel Johnson)
Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God. (Quote by - John Quincy Adams)
Temptation has been here ever since the Garden of Eden. (Quote by - Jerry Falwell)
As the Sandwich-Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptations we resist. (Quote by - Ralph Waldo Emerson)
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor. (Quote by - Ring Lardner)
After listening to thousands of pleas for pardon to offenders, I can hardly recall a case where I did not feel that I might have fallen as my fellow man had done, if I had been subjected to the same demoralizing influences and pressed by the same temptations. (Quote by - Horatio Seymour)
There is a great temptation with songs, melodies and lyrics to overcomplicate them but in fact, you find that the most enduring melodies are often the simplest. (Quote by - Ken Hensley)
Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch. (Quote by - Robert Orben)
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. (Quote by - Bible)
Prince Eugene informed a confidential friend that in the course of his life he had been exposed to many Potiphars, to all of whom he had proved a Joseph, merely because he had so many other things to attend to. (Quote by - Charles Caleb Colton)
Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission. (Quote by - Theodore Bikel)
I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous. (Quote by - Jacques Derrida)
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations. (Quote by - Walter Bagehot)
Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction. (Quote by - John Owen (2))
We're all going to be victims of temptation at several points in our lives. (Quote by - Smokey Robinson)
Find out what your temptations are, and you will find out largely what you are yourself. (Quote by - Henry Ward Beecher)
Ever notice that the whisper of temptation can be heard farther than the loudest call to duty. (Quote by - Earl Wilson)
Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory. (Quote by - Frederick Faber)
But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Quote by - Bible)
Those who believe in the importance of serving others should lead the way by fighting against the temptation we all have, and maybe especially as we age, to close in upon ourselves. (Quote by - Marvin Olasky)
The Devil has a great advantage against us inasmuch as he has a strong bastion and bulwark against us in our own flesh and blood. (Quote by - Martin Luther)
Virtue, alas! not unfrequently trips and falls on the sharp-edged rock of poverty. (Quote by - Eugene Sue)
How many perils doe enfold The righteous man to make him daily fall. (Quote by - Edmund Spenser)
A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself. (Quote by - Charles Caleb Colton)
Some are wrong because they are not strong enough to fight temptation and some some are wrong because they do not know. (Quote by - Arsene Wenger)
Temptations, unlike opportunities, will always give you many second chances. (Quote by - Orlando A. Battista)
Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in. (Quote by - Billy Sunday)
Temptations are a file which rub off much of the rust of self-confidence. (Quote by - Francois de Salignac Fenelon)
Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare. (Quote by - John Dryden)
Remove the temptation of idleness and cupids bow is useless. (Quote by - Ovid)
Honest bread is very well--it's the butter that makes the temptation. (Quote by - Douglas Jerrold)
Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph? (Quote by - Robert Browning Hamilton)
Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address. (Quote by - Lane Olinghouse)
To beguile many and be beguil'd by one. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Tempt not a desperate man. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
I have been exposed to a great amount of temptation throughout the course of my career. (Quote by - DeForest Kelley)
Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin; Each victory will help you some other to win. (Quote by - H R Palmer)
Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper bringing-up, a sound set of values - and witnesses. (Quote by - Franklin P. Jones)
We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine. (Quote by - Eduardo Galeano)
Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. (Quote by - Winston Churchill)
O mischief, thou art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men! (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Every Christian is endued with a power whereby he is enabled to resist temptations. (Quote by - John Tillotson)
Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. (Quote by - Ambrose Bierce)
Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil's home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves. (Quote by - Anne Baxter)
Shut the door of that house of pleasure which you hear resounding with the loud voice of a woman. (Quote by - Moslih Eddin)
I deal with temptation by yielding to it. (Quote by - Mark Twain)
Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. (Quote by - Oscar Wilde)
Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it. (Quote by - W. Somerset Maugham)
With an old maid in the house, watchdogs are unnecessary. (Quote by - Honore de Balzac)
I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me. (Quote by - George Bernard Shaw)
The devil was piqued such saintship to behold, and longed to tempt him. (Quote by - Alexander Pope)
I have switched on this modern laptop machine. And I have told myself that I must resist the temptation to start playing solitaire upon it. (Quote by - Margaret Drabble)
There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing. (Quote by - David McCullough)
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. (Quote by - Oscar Wilde)
Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it. (Quote by - Sam Levenson)
Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths; Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In deepest consequence. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain. (Quote by - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Thy Word. Thy Word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee. (Quote by - Bible)
It is one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason (Quote by - T S Eliot)
Love cries victory when the tears of a woman become the sole defence of her virtue. (Quote by - Jean de la Fontaine)
Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes. (Quote by - E. Stanley Jones)
Might shake the saintship of an anchorite. (Quote by - Lord Byron)
That's what I loved about Temptation Island. I don't even know why they did it. (Quote by - Kathy Griffin)
I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people: they go commonly together. (Quote by - Robert Burton)
Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way. (Quote by - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself. (Quote by - Rita Mae Brown)
Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought. (Quote by - Margaret Oliphant)
No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that is his heart which is capable of responding to it. (Quote by - James Allen)
When a man resists sin on human motive only, he will not hold out long. (Quote by - Daniel Wilson)
'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Virtue is insufficient temptation. (Quote by - George Bernard Shaw)
A vacant mind invites dangerous inmates, as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments. (Quote by - George Stillman Hillard)
Good habits result from resisting temptation. (Quote by - Ancient Proverb)
Every man living shall assuredly meet with an hour of temptation, a certain critical hour, which shall more especially try what mettle his heart is made of. (Quote by - Bishop Robert South)
No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted. (Quote by - George Eliot)
Let a man be but in earnest in praying against a temptation as the tempter is in pressing it, and he needs not proceed by a surer measure. (Quote by - Bishop Robert South)
In part she is to blame that has been tried. He comes too late that comes to be denied. (Quote by - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. (Quote by - Ambrose Bierce)
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? (Quote by - John Greenleaf Whittier)
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I rise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savour) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. (Quote by - E. B. White)
But something may be done that we will not; And sometimes we are devils to ourselves When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is. (Quote by - Thomas a Kempis)
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds Makes deeds ill done! (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. (Quote by - Robert Burns)
Great possessions and great want of them are both strong temptations. (Quote by - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself. (Quote by - Oscar Wilde)
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice. (Quote by - Mark Twain)
To fly the boar, before the boar pursues, Were to incense the boar to follow us, And make pursuit where he did mean no chase. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbor? (Quote by - William Makepeace Thackeray)
We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass. (Quote by - Samuel Johnson)
Temptation hath a music for all ears. (Quote by - Nathaniel Parker Willis)
Middle age is having a choice between two temptations and choosing the one that'll get you home earlier. (Quote by - Dan Bennett)
It is easier to stay out than get out. (Quote by - Mark Twain)
But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor. (Quote by - Alexander Pope)
There are times when it would seem as if God fished with a line, and the devil with a net. (Quote by - Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine)
I can resist anything except temptation. (Quote by - Oscar Wilde)
When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser. (Quote by - Marianne Moore)
The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego. (Quote by - Northrop Frye)
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness. (Quote by - Martin Luther King, Jr.)
What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely. (Quote by - Franklin P. Jones)
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity. (Quote by - George Bernard Shaw)
Temptations, like misfortunes, are sent to test our moral strength. (Quote by - Marguerite de Valois)
God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers. (Quote by - William Penn)
Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it. (Quote by - Mary Wortley Montagu)
Once it becomes impossible for members of Congress to make a career of legislative service, the temptation to bend a vote for whatever reason may yield to the better angels of their nature. (Quote by - James L. Buckley)
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted. (Quote by - James Branch Cabell)
It is a creature That dotes on Cassio, as 'tis the strumpet's plague To beguile many and be beguiled by one. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
An honest heart is not to be trusted with itself in bad company. (Quote by - Samuel Richardson)
If men had only temptations to great sins, they would always be good; but the daily fight with little ones accustoms them to defeat. (Quote by - Jean Paul Friedrich Richter)
A good portrait is incredibly hard to create, there is too much temptation to pander to the individual rather than portray them as they really were. (Quote by - Philippe Halsman)
I have a simple principle for the conduct of life - never to resist an adequate temptation. (Quote by - Max Lerner)
It is a temptation for me to wear all my rings at once. (Quote by - Anna Held)
I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
The realization of God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation. (Quote by - Francois de Salignac Fenelon)
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery. (Quote by - Pope John Paul II)
Never resist temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good. (Quote by - George Bernard Shaw)
Temptations hurt not, though they have accesse; Satan o'ercomes none but by willingnesse. (Quote by - Robert Herrick)
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle. (Quote by - Charles H. Spurgeon)
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure hours that men are made or marred. (Quote by - W. M. Taylor)
There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation. (Quote by - Walter Lippmann)
Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse. (Quote by - H. L. Mencken)
Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods thyself a Goddess. (Quote by - John Milton)
Can a moment of madness make up for an age of consent? (Quote by - Basil Bunting)
All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it. (Quote by - John Locke)
For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
So you tell yourself you are pretty find clay To have tricked temptation and turned it away, But wait, my friend, for a different day; Wait till you want to want to! (Quote by - Edmund Vance Cooke)
No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object. (Quote by - Sidonie Gabrielle Colette)
Who ever lives looking for pleasure only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his enjoyments, idle and weak, the tempter will certainly overcome him, as the wind blows down a weak tree. (Quote by - Buddha)
Temptation to behave is terrible. (Quote by - Bertolt Brecht)
You oughtn't to yield to temptation. Well, somebody must, or the thing becomes absurd. (Quote by - Anthony Hope)
These days the temptation to use steroids in sports has become too great for many young athletes. (Quote by - Jim Sensenbrenner)
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Life is very difficult. It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feelings; but then such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us,--the ties that have made others dependent on us,--and would cut them in two. (Quote by - George Eliot)
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to. (Quote by - Oscar Wilde)
Saintliness is also a temptation. (Quote by - Jean Anouilh)
To attempt to resist temptation, to abandon our bad habits, and to control our dominant passions in our own unaided strength, is like attempting to check by a spider's thread the progress of a ship of the first rate, borne along before wind and tide. (Quote by - Benjamin Waugh)
Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back When gold and silver becks me to come on. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden. (Quote by - Mark Twain)
Know'st thou not any whom corrupting gold Will tempt unto a close exploit of death? (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
The temptation is not here, where you are reading about it or praying about it. It is down in your shop, among bales and boxes, ten-penny nails, and sand-paper. (Quote by - Edwin Hubbell Chapin)
Temptations, when we first meet them, are like a lion that roared at Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them. (Quote by - John Bunyan)
The first temptation, upon meeting an old friend after many years, is always to - look the other way. (Quote by - Ugo Betti)
The devil is very near at hand to those who, like monarchs, are accountable to none but God for their actions. (Quote by - Gustavus II)
Terrible is the temptation to be good. (Quote by - Bertolt Brecht)
The devil tempts us not--'tis we tempt him, Reckoning his skill with opportunity. (Quote by - George Eliot)
We like slipping, but not falling: our real desire is to be tempted enough. (Quote by - Augustus William Hare)
The people ask much, often more than any government can give. We must resist the temptation to promise solutions to all problems. (Quote by - Jane Byrne)
An acknowledged love sanctifies every little freedom; and little freedoms beget great ones. (Quote by - Samuel Richardson)
We usually know what we can do, but temptation shows us who we are. (Quote by - Thomas Kempis)
All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot. (Quote by - Henry Ward Beecher)
Sometimes we are devils to ourselves, When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency. (Quote by - William Shakespeare)
Temptation wrings integrity even as the thumbscrew twists a man's fingers. (Quote by - Chinese Proverb)
Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again. (Quote by - Robert A. Heinlein)
Man is so muddled, so dependent on the things immediately before his eyes, that every day even the most submissive believer can be seen to risk the torments of the afterlife for the smallest pleasure. (Quote by - Joseph De Maistre)
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. (Quote by - Bible)
Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice. (Quote by - Lyman Abbott)
