Tempted Quotes - Page 17

• Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.

  Eric Hoffer

  Animal, Men, Play

  "Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 28, 1973.

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• One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.

  John Burroughs

  Weed, Garden, Plant

  John Burroughs (1901). “A year in the fields: selections from the writings of John Burroughs”

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• When we bring back with us the objects most dear, and find those we left unchanged, we are tempted to doubt the lapse of time; but one link in the chain of affection broken, and every thing seems altered.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Broken, Doubt, Lapses

  Marguerite GARDINER (Countess of Blessington.) (1841). “The Idler in France”, p.32

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• No one was ever born without that light or flame of life. Some event, some person stifles or drowns it altogether. I was always tempted to resuscitate such men by my own joyousness or luminosity.When I break glasses in a night club, as the Russians do, when my unconscious breaks out in wild rebellions, it is against life which has crippled these idealistic, romantic men. I respect these men, cold, pure, faithful, devoted, moral, delicate, sensitive, and unequal to life, more than I respect the tough-minded ones who return three blows to one received, who kill those who hurt them.

  Anais Nin

  Hurt, Blow, Night

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• Jesus says that every Christian has his own cross waiting for him, a cross destined and appointed by God. Each must endure his allotted share of suffering and rejection. But each has a different share: some God deems worthy of the highest form of suffering, and gives them the grace of martyrdom, while others he does not allow to be tempted above that which they are able to bear. But it is the one and the same cross in every case.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Christian, Jesus, Giving

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.44, SCM Press

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• I was driving down a familiar road one fall day when I almost drove off the road, the beauty was so intense. It looked as if God had sent in a team of the world's finest artists overnight-and I was privy to the opening day of his spectacle. As I slowly drove along this festive row, leaves danced in the air and brushed against my windshield. It seemed as if I had landed in Oz. I was strongly tempted to get out and clap at God's imagination.

  Sheila Walsh

  Beauty, Team, Fall

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• We live in a highly competitive society, each of us trying to outdo the other in wealth, in popularity or social prestige, in dress, in scholastic grades or golf scores. One is often tempted to say that conflict, rather than cooperation, is the great governing principle of human life.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Golf, Trying, Principles

  "Language in Thought and Action". Book by S. I. Hayakawa (p.14), 1991.

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• As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Home, Dark, Woods

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.206, Modern Library

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• The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines...I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. And that's not funny....OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.

  Tom Lehrer

  Song, Real, Writing

  Sydney Morning Herald interview, www.smh.com.au. March 1, 2003.

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• In every crisis, if you look carefully, you will spot an opportunity. My insistence is on finding and seizing that opportunity. I never try to side-step a crisis. Rather, the more monstrous the crises, the more I am tempted to rush at it, grasp it by the horns and man-oeuvre it until it gives me what I want

  Verghese Kurien

  Opportunity, Men, Giving

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• A lover of what is looks forward to everything: life, death, disease, loss, earthquakes, bombs, anything the mind might be tempted to call 'bad.' Life will bring us everything we need, to show us what we haven't undone yet. Nothing outside ourselves can make us suffer. Except for our unquestioned thoughts, every place is paradise.

  Byron Katie

  Loss, Earthquakes, Mind

  Byron Katie (2010). “Question Your Thinking, Change the World”, p.74, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Our arms must be mighty ... ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Risk, May, Arms

  Farewell Address, delivered 17 January 1961

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• I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or State, to my circle of friends or even to my own family... Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it,to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.

  Albert Einstein

  Life, Country, Regret

  Albert Einstein (1933). “The fight against war”

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• The thought of going on tour with people like Toyah Wilcox is just appalling. I'm certainly not tempted.

  Gary Kemp

  People

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• It is often said that the modern exhibition has ruined painting. It is an unfortunate fact that it does encourage competition, so that, to attract attention to his work, an artist is tempted to descend to sensationalism, whether it is expressed by strong colour, grotesque handling, unusual subject, or sheer size.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Strong, Artist, Competition

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• Let the standard of everybody's mind be raised to the heights of his own inner glory and then man will feel for himself the greatness of the higher values of life and would be tempted to bring them down into practical life and live them.

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

  Greatness, Men, Mind

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986). “Thirty Years Around the World: 1957-1964”, Stichting Drukkerij En Uitgeverij Mvu

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• As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it.

  George Washington

  Wish, Employment, Ease

  George Washington, Thomas Francis Bayard (1775). “Specimen pages of a proposed publication of the papers of Washington, Franklin, etc”, p.1

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• When tempted to be unfaithful, the intellectual woman will try to inspire her husband with indifference, the sentimental woman with hatred, and the passionate woman with disgust.

  Honore de Balzac

  Husband, Hatred, Temptation

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• If the soul would know the merit which one acquires in temptations suffered in patience and conquered, it would be tempted to say: "Lord, send me temptations."

  Pio of Pietrelcina

  Temptation, Soul, Suffering

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• Do this and you will be an apostle, a fulfiller of what the Lord chose you for, an accomplisher of your calling as messenger. When at first you succeed in all this, then perhaps the Lord will appoint you as a special ambassador-to save others after you have saved yourself; and to help those who are tempted, after you yourself pass through all temptations, and through all experiences in good and evil.

  Theophan the Recluse

  Humility, Evil, Temptation

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• I thought if my son was now eighteen years old and he was tempted to join the fight and take the burden of protecting his family - because it's always tempting especially for young men - what would I do as a mother to stop him?

  Nadine Labaki

  Mother, Fighting, Son

  "'Where Do We Go Now?' Asks Nadine Labaki" by Nana Asfour, www.newyorker.com. March 25, 2012.

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• Your Mission starts where you are,Not where you think you should be.Sometimes we're tempted to think that our current position/job/situation is a barrier to our mission, but, in fact, it is where it starts.

  John Ortberg

  Jobs, Thinking, Facts

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• Even the wisest of mankind cannot live by reason alone; pure arrogant reason, denying the claims of prejudice (which commonly are also the claims of conscience), leads to a wasteland of withered hopes and crying loneliness, empty of God and man: the wilderness in which Satan tempted Christ was not more dreadful than the arid expanse of intellectual vanity deprived of tradition and intuition, where modern man is tempted by his own pride.

  Russell Kirk

  Loneliness, Pride, Men

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.41, Regnery Publishing

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• Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, Jesus, Reality

  Pope Francis (2014). “The Joy of the Gospel”, p.76, BookBaby

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• Be present to those who, living in the midst of a society burdened by poverty and corruption, are broken in spirit, tempted to give up, to leave school and to live on the streets.

  Pope Francis

  Giving Up, School, Broken

  Pope Francis (2016). “Men of Mercy: Pope Francis Speaks to Priests”, p.74, BookBaby

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