Tempted Quotes - Page 14

• It can be argued - and rightly - that Taiwan is not just another regional issue: after all, the Chinese regard it as part of China. But Taiwan is also a regional issue for three reasons. First, the overthrow or even the neutering of democracy in Taiwan, which is what Beijing effectively demands, would be a major setback for democracy in the region as a whole. Second, if the Chinese were able to get their way by force in Taiwan, they would undoubtedly be tempted to do the same in other disputes. And third, there is no lack of such disputes to provoke a quarrel.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Issues, Chinese, Democracy

  4 Copy quote

• What is this you write- 'Come home? Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the time for any one to desert his post. Send us only our first twenty men and I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty.

  Alexander Murdoch Mackay

  Home, Writing, Men

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• . . . Luddites were those frenzied traditionalists of the early 19th century who toured [England] wrecking new weaving machines on the theory that if they were destroyed . . . old jobs and old ways of life could be preserved . . . At certain times in his life each man is tempted to become a Luddite, for there is always something he would like to go back to. But to be against all change-against change in the abstract-is folly.

  James A. Michener

  Life, Jobs, Men

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• Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness.

  Cyril Burt

  Country, America, Cynical

  6 Copy quote

• To be tempted and indulged by the city's most brilliant chefs. It's the dream of every one of us in love with food.

  Gael Greene

  Dream, Food, Cities

  4 Copy quote

• Humility is the safeguard of chastity. In the matter of purity, there is no greater danger than not fearing the danger. For my part, when I find a man secure of himself and without fear, I give him up for lost. I am less alarmed for one who is tempted and who resists by avoiding the occasions, than for one who is not tempted and is not careful to avoid occasions. When a person puts himself in an occasion, saying, I shall not fall, it is an almost infallible sign that he will fall, and with great injury to his soul.

  Philip Neri

  Fall, Humility, Men

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• All those formal systems, in mathematics and physics and the philosophy of science, which claim to give foundations for certain truth are surely mistaken. I am tempted to say that we do not look for truth, but for knowledge. But I dislike this form of words, for two reasons. First of all, we do look for truth, however we define it, it is what we find that is knowledge. And second, what we fail to find is not truth, but certainty; the nature of truth is exactly the knowledge that we do find.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Philosophy, Two, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.

  Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

  Vitality, Language, Speak

  27 Copy quote

• Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role.

  William Torrey Harris

  Humble, School, Thinking

  10 Copy quote

• The reaction to this album has just been fabulous around the world... and I've had offers to perform from around the world and I'm tempted to do it. I've got itchy lips.

  Herb Alpert

  Albums, World, Fabulous

  7 Copy quote

• As for me, I've chosen to follow a simple course: Come clean. And wherever possible, live your life in a way that won't leave you tempted to lie. Failing that, I'd rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for who I am not. So, I tell my story. I write it down. I even publish it. Sometimes this is a humbling experience. Sometimes it's embarrassing. But I haul around no terrible secrets.

  Joyce Maynard

  Lying, Writing, Simple

  5 Copy quote

• You must talk to me, Caravaggio. Or am I just a book? Something to be read, some creature to be tempted out of a loch and shot full of morphine, full of corridors, lies, loose vegetation, pockets of stones.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Lying, Book, Stones

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “The English Patient”, p.253, Vintage

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• I'm tempted to say, 'Writing treatments is like designing a film by hiring six million monkeys to tear out pages of an encyclopedia, then you put the pages through a paper-shredder, randomly grab whatever intact lines are left, sing them in Italian to a Spanish deaf-mute, and then make story decisions with the guy via conference call.' But no... compared to writing treatments, that makes sense, too.

  Terry Rossio

  Writing, Italian, Design

  5 Copy quote

• In Jack Dempsey's early days he had a fight contract, which paid him two dollars per fight for the fights he won. He received nothing for the fights he lost. Jack Dempsey said that in his early days he was knocked down a lot of times and he usually was tempted to stay down because he knew that no one would hit him again until he started to get up. But Jack was a hungry fighter and he knew that if he was going to eat, he must get up in order to get the two dollars. He tells of one occasion when he was knocked down 11 times in one fight, and 11 times he got up in order to win the $2.

  Sterling W Sill

  Fighting, Winning, Order

  Sterling W. Sill (1976). “This Nation Under God”, Bookcraft, Incorporated

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• The Devil, having nothing else to do Went off to tempt my Lady Poltagrue. My Lady, tempted by a private whim, To his extreme annoyance, tempted him.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Evil, Temptation, Privacy

  Hilaire Belloc (1951). “Hilaire Belloc: an anthology of his prose and verse”

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• When you are tempted to look elsewhere for greener pastures, just remember someone else is probably looking at yours. And if another pasture looks greener, perhaps it is getting better care and attention. Grass is always greener . . . where it is watered.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Justice, Temptation, Get Better

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• This mortal probation is a brief period-just a short span, linking the eternity of the past with the eternity of the future. Yet it was to be a period of tremendous importance. It is, in fact, the most vital period of our entire eternal existence. In this mortal state we come face to face with innumerable temptations and pressures. Sometimes we come in contact with advocates of wrongdoing, disobedience, and sin. Lucifer is going about tempting those who can be tempted to see if he can lead them astray.

  ElRay L. Christiansen

  Past, Temptation, Pressure

  4 Copy quote

• History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.

  A. J. P. Taylor

  Book, People, Events

  A. J. P. Taylor (2001). “English History 1914-1945”, p.602, Oxford Paperbacks

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• I was tempted my junior year to go out of college and forgo my eligibility. I had broken several world records. I did have a lot of people telling me that I should go pro.

  Natalie Coughlin

  College, Years, People

  8 Copy quote

• Ministers are tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy … But our task is the opposite of distraction … how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

  Henri Nouwen

  Opposites, Voice, People

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.29, HarperCollins

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• Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.

  Abba Eban

  Men, Rejection, Missing

  Abba Solomon Eban (1968). “Forward to peace: text of the address in the twenty-third plenary session of the Gerneral Assembly of the United Nations, Monday, 8 October, 1968”

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• If a girl is pretty she will be tempted.

  Lillian Russell

  Girl, Ifs

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• I have often wondered how anyone who does not read, by which I mean daily, having some book going all the time, can make it through life. Indeed if I were required to make a sharp division in the very nature of people, I would be tempted to make it there: readers and nonreaders of books... It is astonishing how the presence or absence of this habit so consistently characterizes an individual in other respects; it is as though it were a kind of barometer of temperament, of personality, even of character. Aside from that, for me it constituted something like sanity insurance.

  William Brinkley

  Book, Character, Mean

  William Brinkley (2013). “The Last Ship: A Novel”, p.65, Penguin

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• Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.

  Ronald Reagan

  Atheist, Believe, Dinner

  Ronald Reagan (2004). “Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches”, p.422, Simon and Schuster

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• Standing Here My entire world far beneath my feet, I should be filled with pride. Instead, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of defeat. Suddenly it comes to me, toes tempted to test the ledge, that there is a way out of this. Clam surety flows through my veins, and as I turn to wave good-bye, I wonder if it will hurt or if a single person will cry at my funeral. I take a deep breath, a final taste of sweet mountain air. I conjure Leona, Emily. Move my feet closer. Closer There's Grandma One, Grandma Two, and their spouses, waiting for me. I see Dad. Cara. Mommy. I screw up my courage, step over

  Ellen Hopkins

  Sweet, Hurt, Dad

  8 Copy quote