Temptation Quotes - Page 16

• 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.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Deeds, Sometimes, Wonder

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• You think that you can judge what's good or evil from whether you enjoy doing it or not. You think that evil is what always appears in the form of a temptation, while good is what you never spontaneously want to do. I think this is all total rubbish, if you don't mind my saying so.

  Hannah Arendt

  Thinking, Evil, Judging

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• Just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of conscience tells everybody, "Thou shalt not kill," even though man's natural desires and inclinations may at times be murderous, so the law of Hitler's land demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody: "Thou shalt kill," although the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against the normal desires and inclinations of most people. Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it - the quality of temptation.

  Hannah Arendt

  Country, Men, Law

  "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt, (Ch. VIII), 1963.

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• I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame And every time I pass that way I always hear my name

  Bob Dylan

  Flames, Names, Doorways

  Song: Every Grain Of Sand, Album: Shot of Love, 1981

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• 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

  Giving, Enemy, Saint

  Brigham Young (1867). “Journal of Discourses”, p.113

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• London is a city that offers all kinds of temptations, and whenever I go for a walk I discover things that I would like to bring back as souvenirs. But my resources are very limited. I cannot buy anything, and I make a point of taking my walks a good distance from these riches.

  Soseki Natsume

  Distance, Cities, London

  Soseki Natsume (2011). “Spring Miscellany: And London Essays”, p.114, Tuttle Publishing

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• When one's function is to teach the loftiest wisdom, it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe that until you have spoken, nothing has been said.

  Jacques Maritain

  Believe, Said, Function

  Jacques Maritain (2013). “The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time”, p.147, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• [On how she goes about trying to live authentically] Well really listening to my point of view and if I am on a set, say, that doesn't really value a woman's point of view, regardless of how they feel, continuing to give my point of view and try to find a way to be heard and not diminishing myself because other people are diminishing me. Because that, I think, is the worst temptation that, you know, you judge yourself by how others are judging you, and to fall into that trap is to walk into the realm of self-annihilation.

  Jennifer Beals

  Fall, Thinking, Self

  Matthewsplace.com Interview, October 2009.

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• How different the peace of God from that of the world! It calms the passions, preserves the purity of the conscience, is inseparable from righteousness, unites us to God and strengthens us against temptations. The peace of the soul consists in an absolute resignation to the will of God.

  Francois Fenelon

  Peace, Passion, Soul

  Francois Fenelon (2014). “Spiritual Progress”, p.115, Lulu.com

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• Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

  George Orwell

  Pain, Believe, Hard Work

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “Our job is to make life worth living, 1949-1950”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

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• After you have written a thing and you reread it, there is always the temptation to fix it up, to improve it, to remove its poison, blunt its sting.

  Jean Cocteau

  Writing, Poison, Blunt

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• Not a sorrow, not a burden, not a temptation, not a bereavement, not a disappointment, not a care, not a groan or tear, but has its antidote in God's rich and inexhaustible resources.

  George C. Lorimer

  God, Disappointment, Bereavement

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert (p. 282), 1895.

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• Who, under pressing temptations to lie, adheres to truth, nor to the profane betrays aught of a sacred trust, is near the summit of wisdom and virtue.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Lying, Sacred, Virtue

  "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

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• Great success is a great temptation.

  Theodore Parker

  Great Success

  Theodore Parker (1864). “Miscellaneous Discourses”, p.130

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• Women have traditionally been either put on pedestals or damned as the source of all sexual temptation and sin. These are two sides of the same coin, since both place women in a nonhuman role. Playboy has opposed these warped sexual values and, in so doing, helped women step down from their pedestals and enjoy their natural sexuality as much as men.

  Hugh Hefner

  Women, Two Sides, Pedestal

  Interview with Larry Dubois, iplayboy.com. January 1, 1974.

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• Lying is a crime the least liable to variation in its definitions. A child will upon the slightest temptation tell an untruth as readily as the truth. That is, as soon as he can suspect that it will be to his advantage; and the dread that he afterward has of telling a lie is acquired principally by his being threatened, punished, and terrified by those who detect him in it, till at length, a number of painful impressions are annexed to the telling of an untruth, and he comes even to shudder at the thought of it.

  Joseph Priestley

  Children, Lying, Numbers

  Joseph Priestley (1831). “The Theological and Miscellaneous Works. Ed. with Notes by John Towill Rutt”, p.196

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• I love red and I think it's more than just a color: It evokes an emotion. When you wear red, it makes you feel empowered and sexy. For me, sin is all about temptation and the power of seduction. Red Sin is a combination of those elements to make women feel irresistible.

  Christina Aguilera

  Sexy, Thinking, Color

  "Sexy As Sin: Christina Aguilera Reveals Why She Finally Feels Sexy In Her Own Skin". Interview with Laura Schreffler, hauteliving.com. March 28, 2014.

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• America's Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small-government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big-government sympathizers who want to impose their version of 'righteousness' on others through the hammer of law.... Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government.

  Dick Armey

  Christian, Independent, Government

  "Christians and Big Government - Why faith requires freedom". FreedomWorks (freedomworks.org), October 12, 2006.

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• The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hand it came.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Struggle, Heart, Men

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• Remove but the temptations of leisure, and the bow of Cupid will lose its effect.

  Ovid

  Bows, Leisure, Cupid

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• To appear to be on the inside and know more than others about what is going on is a great temptation for most people. It is a rare person who is willing to seem to know less than he does ... Somehow, people seem to feel that it is belittling to their importance not to know more than other people.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Knowledge, Humility, Rare Person

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• Gaming is a vice the more dangerous as it is deceitful; and, contrary to every other species of luxury, flatters its votaries with the hopes of increasing their wealth; so that avarice itself is so far from securing us against its temptations that it often betrays the more thoughtless and giddy part of mankind into them.

  Henry Fielding

  Gambling, Luxury, Vices

  Henry Fielding (1988). “An Enquiry Into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers and Related Writings”, p.92, Wesleyan University Press

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• A woman flees from temptation, but a man just crawls away from it in the cheerful hope that it may overtake him.

  Helen Rowland

  Men, Cheerful, May

  Helen Rowland (2017). “A Guide to Men: Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl”, p.59, Litres

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• Most of the temptations that come to us to sell the soul come in connection with the getting of money.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Soul, Connections, Sells

  William Jennings Bryan, Mary Baird Bryan (1913). “Political speeches. Speeches on foreign lands. Educational and religiouus speeches. Miscellaneous speeches”

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• Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.

  Agnes Repplier

  Virtue

  Agnes Repplier (1920). “Points of Friction”

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