Quotes About Temptation

No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they beautiful.

You had better not open that door.

For our Selves will always do pretty well if we don't pay them too much attention. Our Selves are like some little children who will be happy enough so long as they are left to their own games, but when we begin to interfere with them, and make them presents of too nice playthings, or too many sweet things, they begin at once to fret and spoil.

No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they are beautiful.

The righteousness that makes a man visit the sins of a father upon his children, is the righteousness of a devil, not the righteousness of God. When God visits the sins of a father on his children, it is to deliver the child from his own sins through yielding to inherited temptation.

Thy red lips, like worms, Travel over my cheek.

It is like his Father, too, not to withhold good wine because men abuse it. Enforced virtue is unworthy of the name. That men may rise above temptation, it is needful that they should have temptation. It is the will of him who makes the grapes and the wine.

And now, in love with himself, and so shut out from the salvation of love to another, he was specially in danger of falling in love with any woman's admiration.

When a man begins to abstain, then first he recognizes the strength of his passion; it may be, when a man has not a thing left, he will begin to know what a necessity he had made of things;

if Donal was in any danger of loving the things of this world, it was in the shape of books–books he had a strong inclination to accumulate and hoard.

Herein, too, lies a despicable certainty: the galaxy is rife with terror. It crowds the shadows, lurks at the threshold, watches from behind every half-closed door. The dark side is ever present, waiting to tempt the unwary, to make monsters of the benign, to twist the bright spark of the imagination toward fear. Yes, the ways of the dark side are insidious indeed, but they are not unknown—not if you know where to look. Or should that be . . . where not to look?

Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is possible that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never had much temptation to be human beings.

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid; but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.

When I was young and had no sense In far-off Mandalay I lost my heart to a Burmese girl As lovely as the day. Her skin was gold, her hair was jet, her teeth were ivory; I said, For twenty silver pieces, Maiden, sleep with me. She looked at me, so pure, so sad, The loveliest thing alive, And in her lisping, virgin voice, Stood out for twenty-five.

Tell me, what did you think of me before that day I gave you that note?" He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was even a sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst. "I hated the sight of you," he said. "I wanted to rape you and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your head in with a cobble-stone.

the god in men is also the devil the moment it begins to masticate on the morsels of power.

Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for non-attachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.

there is always a temptation to think that industrialism is harmless so long as it is clean and orderly.

A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.4

Well, Hilda and I were married, and right from the start it was a flop. Why did you marry her? you say. But why did you marry yours? These things happen to us. I wonder whether you'll believe that during the first two or three years I had serious thoughts of killing Hilda. Of course in practice one never does these things, they're only a kind of fantasy that one enjoys thinking about. Besides, chaps who murder their wives always get copped.

Gordon wished he would come in. Sell him a copy of Women in Love. How it would disappoint him! But no! The Welsh solicitor had funked it. He tucked his umbrella under his arm and moved off with righteously turned backside. But doubtless tonight, when darkness hid his blushes, he'd slink into one of the rubber–shops and buy High Jinks in a Parisian Convent, by Sadie Blackeyes. Gordon turned away from the door and back to the book–shelves.

gambling, the cheapest of all luxuries.