Quotes About Temptation

How frequent it is that men on their road to ruin feel elation such as this! A man signs away a moiety of his substance; nay, that were nothing; but a moiety of the substance of his children; he puts his pen to the paper that ruins him and them; but in doing so he frees himself from a score of immediate little pestering, stinging troubles: and, therefore, feels as though fortune has been almost kind to him.

He had gone to parties for a year or two, and during those years had essayed the life of a young man about town, frequenting theatres and billiard-rooms, and doing a few things which he should have left undone, and leaving undone a few things which should not have been so left.

As a very young man, Frank Gresham found the life to which he was thus introduced agreeable enough. He consoled himself as best he might for the blue looks with which he was greeted by his own party, and took his revenge by consorting more thoroughly than ever with his political adversaries. Foolishly, like a foolish moth, he flew to the bright light, and, like the moths, of course he burnt his wings.

You talk of the heart as though we could control it." "The heart will follow the thoughts, and they may be controlled. I am not passionate, perhaps, as you are, and I think I can control my heart. But my fortune has been kind to me, and I have never been tempted

There are no antiquities in my case — not even an independent curl nor a bit of loose ivory. Her insipid years have been devoted to the ironmonger, and she is now as tempting a daughter of Eve as ever made a man's heart beat uneasy beneath his sword belt. She ought to have been a sort of relative of yours, Steinmark.

It is easy for most of us to keep our hands from picking and stealing when picking and stealing plainly lead to prison diet and prison garments. But when silks and satins come of it, and with the silks and satins general respect, the net result of honesty does not seem to be so secure.

It is no doubt very wrong to long after a naughty thing. But nevertheless, we all do so. One may say that hankering after naughty things is the very essence of the evil into which we have been precipitated by Adam's fall. When we confess that we are all sinners, we confess that we all long after naughty things

I am quite prepared to acknowledge that John Eames should have kept himself clear of Amelia Roper; but then young men so frequently do those things which they should not do!

At any rate, it is as easy to do that as to tell of the man who is one hour good and the next bad, who aspires greatly but fails in practice, who sees the higher but too often follows the lower course.

She still thought of a possible Corsair who would be willing to give up all but his vices for her love, and for whose sake she would be willing to share even them. It was but a dream, but nevertheless it pervaded her fancy constantly.

A clergyman, — and such a clergyman too!" "I don't see that that has anything to do with it." And as he now spoke, John did take his eyes off his book. "Why should not a clergyman turn thief as well as anybody else? You girls always seem to forget that clergymen are only men after all.

Men reconcile themselves to swindling. Though they themselves mean to be honest, dishonesty of itself is no longer odious to them.

You can run down a demi-god only by making him out to be a demi-devil.  These

A gentleman over fifty, popular in London, with a seat in Parliament, fond of good dinners, and possessed of everything which the world has to give, could hardly have wished to run away with his neighbour's wife

but there might be a question whether he was not paying too dearly for his whistle. And

There are those who go to the theatre as they would go to a brothel

P]eople don't want freedom. They only want to consume. They look at the commercials, totally captivated, and get into debt so they can buy everything.

out in the world there was all the untried beckoning enchantments:dancing, sensuous music, merriment--and love.

Fear, the devil's holy water

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Why should an all-loving father lead his child into temptation? Why must he be implored not to? At that moment in Ursula's drafty chamber, Celia renounced God. She would cease to worry about religion. She would conform to any outward acts which seemed expedient at the time, and she would guide her own life as she saw fit. Her own will and desires should be her sole criteria. All else was inconsistency or downright lies. And nothing was worth suffering for.

All we have to do is idly sit indoors With smooth roses powdered on our cheeks, Our bodies burning naked through the fold Of shining Amorgos' silk and meet the men With our dear Venus-plats plucked trim and neat. Their stirring love will rise up furiously, They'll beg our arms to open. That's our time! We'll disregard their knocking beat them off And they will soon be rabid for a Peace I'm sure of it.

Bad people...are in conflict with themselves; they desire one thing and will another, like the incontinent who choose harmful pleasures instead of what they themselves believe to be good.

The self-indulgent man, then, craves for all pleasant things or those that are most pleasant . . . Hence he is pained both when he fails to get them and when he is craving for them, for appetite involves pain.

Once more; it is harder, as Heraclitus says, to fight against pleasure than against anger: