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2ec6a97 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. temptation C.S. Lewis
7d8b7f5 Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified? temptation sin Chuck Palahniuk
64588ca 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? temptation morality religion steadfastness doctrine law ethics principles soul Charlotte Brontë
5f36ccc People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked. good-and-evil temptation wickedness Terry Pratchett
2fb6728 No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. temptation repentance sin George Eliot
3f42dbc Power was my weakness and my temptation. temptation weakness J.K. Rowling
b309df7 Whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out... temptation C.S. Lewis
14fbaff Get thee behind me, Satan! temptation zoey-redbird P.C. Cast
e8f9ebd What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them? temptation new-york-city P.G. Wodehouse
dff8feb Temptation is the feeling we get when encountered by an opportunity to do what we innately know we shouldn't. opportunity-temptation temptation choice life inspirational Steve Maraboli
6ce4539 Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable? temptation Margaret Atwood
1b4a9e4 "Wine and women make wise men dote and forsake God's law and do wrong." However, the fault is not in the wine, and often not in the woman. The fault is in the one who misuses the wine or the woman or other of God's crations. Even if you get drunk on the wine and through this greed you lapse into lechery, the wine is not to blame but you are, in being unable or unwilling to discipline yourself. And even if you look at a woman and become caught up in her beauty and assent to sin [= adultery; extramarital sex], the woman is not to blame nor is the beauty given her by God to be disparaged: rather, you are to blame for not keeping your heart more clear of wicked thoughts. ... If you feel yourself tempted by the sight of a woman, control your gaze better ... You are free to leave her. Nothing constrains you to commit lechery but your own lecherous heart." stereotypes men temptation women greed beauty clichés drunkenness social-norms misogyny hypocrisy double-standards immorality gender lust sexuality wine Anonymous
1c68682 Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants. temptation elephants loyalty Neil Gaiman
6d2ff4c But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo. temptation faramir the-one-ring J.R.R. Tolkien
c2feb15 The very good people did not convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands - and you hated the things it asked of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before - and it's better than anything I've known. responsibility temptation Edith Wharton
4f1d5b2 Mma Ramotswe sighed. 'We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.' That is true,' said Mma Potokwane sadly. 'There are many temptations in this life, but cake is probably one of the biggest of them. ramotswe temptation Alexander McCall Smith
2371699 Sure, they only had ten days to stop the giants from waking Gaia. Sure, he could die before dinnertime. But he loved being told that something was impossible. It was like someone handing him a lemon meringue pie and telling him not to throw it. He just couldn't resist the challenge. temptation Rick Riordan
4282b4c The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. temptation self-control Oscar Wilde
ee3c517 He whirled in the water and grinned at me. Damn, he was a handsome bastard. I realized he was half-naked. Blue swirls of tattoos painted his chest. When God made that chest, he did to tempt women. temptation tattoos chest kate Ilona Andrews
f6d3db1 "Dad, will they ever come back?" "No. And yes." Dad tucked away his harmonica. "No not them. But yes, other people like them. Not in a carnival. God knows what shape they'll come in next. But sunrise, noon, or at the latest, sunset tomorrow they'll show. They're on the road." "Oh, no," said Will. "Oh, yes, said Dad. "We got to watch out the rest of our lives. The fight's just begun." They moved around the carousel slowly. "What will they look like? How will we know them?" "Why," said Dad, quietly, "maybe they're already here." Both boys looked around swiftly. But there was only the meadow, the machine, and themselves. Will looked at Jim, at his father, and then down at his own body and hands. He glanced up at Dad. Dad nodded, once, gravely, and then nodded at the carousel, and stepped up on it, and touched a brass pole. Will stepped up beside him. Jim stepped up beside Will. Jim stroked a horse's mane. Will patted a horse's shoulders. The great machine softly tilted in the tides of night. Just three times around, ahead, thought Will. Hey. Just four times around, ahead, thought Jim. Boy. Just ten times around, back, thought Charles Halloway. Lord. Each read the thoughts in the other's eyes. How easy, thought Will. Just this once, thought Jim. But then, thought Charles Halloway, once you start, you'd always come back. One more ride and one more ride. And, after awhile, you'd offer rides to friends, and more friends until finally... The thought hit them all in the same quiet moment. ...finally you wind up owner of the carousel, keeper of the freaks... proprietor for some small part of eternity of the traveling dark carnival shows.... Maybe, said their eyes, they're already here." temptation dark light fear life internal-conflict evil Ray Bradbury
fea0c8b Nothing can hurt you except sin; nothing can grieve me except sin; nothing can defeat you except sin. Therefore, be on your guard, my Mansoul. temptation John Bunyan
ee02b97 The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior. Suddenly I discover that I am ministering to AIDS victims to enhance my resume. I find I renounced ice cream for Lent to lose five excess pounds... I have fallen victim to what T.S. Eliot calls the greatest sin: to do the right thing for the wrong reason. temptation Brennan Manning
520d3f3 Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That reminds me--I spotted something between her legs that made me think of you. sex temptation intercourse genitals vagina Tom Stoppard
25ea32d One year Halloween came on October 24, three hours after midnight. At that time, James Nightshade of 97 Oak Street was thirteen years, eleven months, twenty-three days old. Next door, William Halloway was thirteen years, eleven months, and twenty-four days old. Both touched toward fourteen; it almost trembled in their hands. And that was the October week when they grew up overnight, and were never so young any more... temptation supernatural Ray Bradbury
9db0604 You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.' Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip. temptation religion W. Somerset Maugham
c7206fa Saintliness is also a temptation. temptation Jean Anouilh
b396bb4 Perhaps I might have resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down temptation Edith Wharton
e21abbf "In answer to modern requests for signs and wonders, Our Lord might say, 'You repeat Satan's temptation, whenever you admire the wonders of science, and forget that I am the Author of the Universe and its science. Your scientists are the proofreaders, but not the authors of the Book of Nature; they can see and examine My handiwork, but they cannot create one atom themselves. You would tempt Me to prove Myself omnipotent by meaningless tests...You tempt Me after you have willfully destroyed your own cities with bombs by shrieking out, "Why does God not stop this war?" You tempt Me, saying that I have no power, unless I show it at your beck and call. This, if you remember, is exactly how Satan tempted Me in the desert. I have never had many followers on the lofty heights of Divine truth, I know; for instance, I have hardly had the intelligentsia. I refuse to perform stunts to win them, for they would not really be won that way. It is only when I am seen on the Cross that I really draw men to Myself; it is by sacrifice, and not by marvels, that I must make My appeal. I must win followers not with test tubes, but with My blood; not with material power, but with love; not with celestial fireworks, but with the right use of reason and free will." temptation christianity jesus satan miracles Fulton J. Sheen
39c4f41 When I say 'I will be true to you' I am drawing a quiet space beyond the reach of other desires. No-one can legislate love; it cannot be given orders or cajoled into service. Love belongs to itself, deaf to pleading and unmoved by violence. Love is not something you can negotiate. Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation. ... When I say 'I will be true to you' I must mean it in spite of the formalities, instead of the formalities. temptation reason love truth formalities Jeanette Winterson
3770ec8 . . . is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name? fate temptation duty Donna Tartt
f2325e5 But a good wife--a good unworldly woman--may really help a man, and keep him more independent. temptation George Eliot
f433e08 It is an old story, that men sell themselves to the tempter, and sign a bond with their blood, because it is only to take effect at a distant day; then rush on to snatch the cup their souls thirst after with an impulse not the less savage because there is a dark shadow beside them forevermore. There is no short cut, no patent tram-road to wisdom: after all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time. temptation George Eliot
985919f Why ask for your daily bread when you own the bakery? wealth temptation faith self-sufficiency materialism Randy Alcorn
c33088f Philip knew by now that whenever anyone was angry with him his first thought was to say something about his club-foot. His estimate of the human race was determined by the fact that scarcely anyone failed to resist the temptation. human-race temptation club-foot W. Somerset Maugham
efba1fc Eve was tempted not by wealth or love but by knowledge. temptation fall knowledge Philip Pullman
01bf9f8 Satan's chief device of temptation is to attack the truth of God. temptation christianity satan R.C. Sproul
ad09535 "With golden giftes and many a guilefull word words temptation greed gold Edmund Spenser
ff60e6a When I am tempted and feel the power of sin and its tug on my affections, the gospel gives me something to say: 'Christ bled and died for this sin--I will therefore have nothing to do with it. I am now united to Christ by the indwelling of the Spirit--how can I drag him into my sin? temptation sanctification Sinclair B. Ferguson
5a6ffba The temptation is too strong for me. Oh, Lord! where is Thy peace that I believed in, in my childhood? - that I hear people speaking of now, as if it hushed up the troubles of life, and had not to be sought for - sought for, as with tears of blood! [-Jemima, chapter 26, pg. 275] temptation troubles peace tears longing Elizabeth Gaskell
5bcd89c She was a desperate woman with frailties just like her, temptations just like her, a woman who had needs, a woman who loved almost to the point of there being no more her anymore, a woman who probably cried too much, just like her, a woman afraid, wanting to believe rather than believing [...] woman temptation faith family life love tears Susan Vreeland
a4aa3bc The shoes themselves were light green, with lowish heels (which were very important for comfort and walking; high heels were always a temptation, but, like all temptations, one paid for them later). temptation shoes Alexander McCall Smith
d0ce954 She reminded him of September blackberries, which looked ripe but could just as easily be sour as sweet when you ate them. temptation romantic-gamble sweet-and-sour Tracy Chevalier
75b1809 Tomorrow's character is made out of today's thoughts. Temptation may come suddenly, but sin doesn't. pornographers sex men temptation women purity Randy Alcorn
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