TEMPTATION QUOTES III
quotations about temptation
There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.
C. S. LEWIS
Mere Christianity
Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.
PASCAL
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Every yielding to temptation is a hindrance, not a help, to moral development; but every temptation offers what, rightly employed, is an indispensable means of moral development. For all moral development is through temptation to virtue.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The mother who tries to keep her child away from all temptation simply prepares the boy for a terrible fall when he gets old enough to leave the home. It is not by taking away the bonds, it is by giving strength to the man that he may break the bonds, that he is redeemed. Every man is like a Samson bound by his enemies, and he must acquire the strength within himself to break them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
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
Temptation always gets hotter the closer we get to it. It would have been hard for Eve to pick the forbidden fruit if she stayed clear of it, say a hundred yards away.
RAYMOND MAHER
"Don't sit near the fire if your head is made of butter", The Battlefords News-Optimist, March 16, 2017
Honest bread is very well--it's the butter that makes the temptation.
DOUGLAS JERROLD
The Catspaw
Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Measure for Measure
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
Frequent and violent temptations were a proof that the citadel of the soul had not fallen and that the devil raged to make it fall.
JAMES JOYCE
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Oh the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fear of perishing forever! They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of my great help, my great supports from Heaven, and the great grace that God extended to such a wretch as I.
JOHN BUNYAN
preface, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
We think if we can only take the temptation away from men, men will be virtuous. We are mistaken. Men are made virtuous by confronting temptation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
ALEXANDER POPE
Moral Essays
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 should end in victory.
J. NEWTON
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