quotations about temptation
The Devil's subtlest temptations are the ones you yield to without even knowing you've given in.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
Soul's Castle fell at one blast of temptation,
But many a worm had pierced the foundation.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
"Blackberries"
None are known to be good, till they have opportunity to be bad.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Some men flee from temptation, but others just crawl away from it hoping it will overtake them.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
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
Temptation is woman's weapon and man's excuse.
H. L. MENCKEN
Mencken Chrestomathy
Temptation hath a music for all ears.
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
"Extract"
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.
RITA MAE BROWN
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
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
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour.... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Jane Eyre
There's a lesson in every temptation.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
Bearing up against temptations and prevailing over them, is the very thing wherein the whole life of religion consists; 'Tis the trial which God puts upon us in this world, by which we are to make evidence of our love and obedience to Him, and of our fitness to be made members of His kingdom.
SAMUEL CLARKE
attributed, Works, Containing Sermons on Several Subjects, Volume 2
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love's Labour's Lost
When you flee temptation be sure you don't leave a forwarding address.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The man who loves and seeks the excitement of temptation, shows that he is restrained from sin by fear, and not by principle--that while his life is on the side of virtue, his affections lean to vice.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
Gold-foil, Hammered from Popular Proverbs
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
There are those who say that temptation can be barricaded beyond the door. The ones who think that stray desires can be driven out of the heart like the moneychangers from the temple. Maybe they can, if you patrol your weak points day and night, don't look, don't smell, don't dream.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay
To have tricked temptation and turned it away,
But wait, my friend, for a different day;
Wait till you want to want to!
EDMUND VANCE COOKE
Desire