Quotes About Temptation

We can't choose what we want and don't want and that's the hard lonely truth. Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it's going to kill us. We can't escape who we are.

If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, it it better to turn away? Or- like Boris- is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

Before his marriage Lincoln enjoyed close relations with young women and almost certainly found outlets for his sexual urges among the prostitutes who were readily available on the frontier.

Ambition is a passion, at once strong and insidious, and is very apt to cheet a man out of his happiness and his true respectability of character.

In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress," he began, "you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward." Bunyan's muckraker, he suggested, "typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing.

we were all experts at making a great deal out of very little, even while we all still had a lot, and were still being incited by advertisements to spend and use and discard

Half asleep in the sun, reassured by the familiar smell of frying fat, I'd make promises to God. If only He'd let me be a singer! I knew I'd probably turn to whiskey and rock 'n' roll like they all did, but not for years, I promised. Not for years, Lord. Not till I had glorified His name and bought Mama a yellow Cadillac and a house on Old Henderson Road.

By the time that poem became the story "River of Names,"* I had made the decision to reverse that process: to claim my family, my true history, and to tell the truth not only about who I was but about the temptation to lie.

That night at Dumbarton was a classic of its kind. She had hopes still, I think, of enslaving me despite myself with her charms. And I probably thought the same. We both found we were mistaken. It had its moments; but she has the mind and morals of a jungle cat. She didn't enjoy meeting … another of the same.

Philippa said, to the scandalization of priest and secretary and chargé d'affaires, 'I think I'd like to get drunk.

Your blasted Nanny should have taught you what mine did,' said Lymond. 'The things you enjoy most aren't good for you.

If you had asked me, I could have told you, without putting yourself to the trouble of experiment, that no one, saint or sinner, is likely to seduce Francis against his will. Unfortunately.

You'll seek out strumpets, fumble with courtiers, fornicate with either parent of the heiress you are supposed to be marrying, but to embrace your wife sickens you?' The music stopped in the room; and the movement. 'Ah,' said Lymond. His face had emptied. 'From a new host and an old harlot, the good Lord deliver us.

You are not coming.' 'But——' said Christopher. 'You heard your father,' said Killingworth. 'You can't hold enough liquor.' 'Can you?' said Christopher, goaded. 'No,' said George Killingworth, after a moment's reflection. 'But who else is going to help us to bed?

Does anyone—Jerott?—know a nice clean strumpet who doesn't have the pox and will sleep in my room tonight to discourage Richard? She needn't stay beyond half an hour, and I don't want to meet her.' 'And that's a bloody waste,' said Jerott belligerently. 'And it's going to stay a bloody waste,' said Lymond tartly. 'I want a little privacy, not to work up a joint reputation as Hophni and Phinehas.

Si los deseos fueran pasteles —dijo Lymond, lanzando al aire un objeto brillante—, los mendigos darían mordiscos.

It's a curious thing, but people cannot resist anonymous letters. It's like free sample offers. They appeal to all one's lower instincts.

Yet no woman had ever so stirred his blood; she had only to look or speak to make the very bones shake in his body.

Wonderful what a little nip'll do in case of need, and the less you're used to it the more good it does you.

By that time we shall, I hope, be moving in different circles. I shall be in the one devoted to murderers, and you in the much lower and hotter one devoted to those who tempt others to murder them.

They knew, with the painful conviction of experience, what it meant to say, "I see and approve the better, but follow the worse.

This is how the devil works with temptation—little compromises. King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, murdered Uriah, and lied to his people. And it began with a small, lingering, lustful look. We should pray, "Lord, lead me away from even the little things, because that's how the big things start.

By awakening a little earlier to have more devotional time with God, you may find that you have increased physical and mental energy throughout the day as well. To resist the daily temptations that assail us, we need the same secret weapon Jesus used. It is described in Ephesians 6:17: "Take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Multitudes of Christians fall on the battlefield and fail to overcome evil because they wait until they are immersed in the fires of temptation before making any effort to resist. At that point, it is often too late. As soon as you recognize a fiery dart sailing toward you, there is no time to lose. Hold up that shield of faith and do everything in your power to keep as much distance as possible between you and the temptation. If we yield without a fight, we are in reality inviting temptation.