TEMPTATION QUOTES III

quotations about temptation

Temptation quote

There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.

LYMAN ABBOTT

The Theology of an Evolutionist

Tags: Lyman Abbott


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

Tags: C. S. Lewis


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

Tags: Pascal


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


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

Tags: Lyman Abbott


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

Tags: Lyman Abbott


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


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


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

Tags: John Bunyan


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

Tags: Lyman Abbott


Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Maxims for Revolutionists

Tags: George Bernard Shaw


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

Tags: James Joyce


But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.

ALEXANDER POPE

Moral Essays

Tags: Alexander Pope


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


Ah! when in the immortal ranks enlisted,
I sometimes wonder if we shall not find
That not by deeds, but by what we've resisted,
Our places are assigned.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"As By Fire"

Tags: Ella Wheeler Wilcox


There is a cure for temptation. What? Yielding to it.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: Honore de Balzac