Temptation

“Why comes temptation but for man to meetAnd so be pedestaled in triumph?”

“I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people: they go commonly together.”

“Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not only "better angels" in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to temptation — especially the temptation to abuse power over others.”

“But Satan now is wiser than of yore,And tempts by making rich, not making poor.”

“Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back,When gold and silver becks me to come on.”

“How oft the sight of means to do ill deedsMakes ill deeds done!”

“Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.”

“I am that way going to temptation,Where prayers cross.”

“To beguile many and be beguil'd by one.”

“Know'st thou not any whom corrupting goldWould tempt unto a close exploit of death?”

“Sometimes we are devils to ourselves,Presuming on their changeful potency.”

“With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly....Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

“What's done we partly may compute,But know not what's resisted.”

“So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay Wait till you want to want to!”

“The devil tempts us not—'tis we tempt him,Reckoning his skill with opportunity.”

“Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours, that are but skin-deep.”

“Temptations hurt not, though they have accesse;Satan o'ercomes none but by willingnesse.”

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life.”

“Honest bread is very well—it's the butter that makes the temptation.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan.”

“Let a man be but in earnest in praying against a temptation as the tempter is in pressing it, and he needs not proceed by a surer measure.”

“Could'st thou boast, O child of weakness! In thy path of life?”

“When you have overcome one temptation, you must he ready to enter the lists with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. A man had need to fear this most of all, that he fears not at all.”

“Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them.”

“On this earth all is temptation. Crosses tempt us by irritating our pride, and prosperity by flattering it. Our life is a continual combat, but one in which Jesus Christ fights for us. We must pass on unmoved, while temptations rage around us, as the traveler, overtaken by a storm, simply wraps his cloak more closely about him, and pushes on more vigorously toward his destined home.”

“The realization of God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.”

“When tempted, the shortest and surest way is to act like a little child at the breast; when we show it a frightful monster, it shrinks back and buries its face in its mother's bosom, that it may no longer behold it.”

“Christian! thou knowest thou earriest gunpowder about thee. Desire them that carry fire to keep at a distance. It is a dangerous crisis, when a proud heart meets with flattering lips.”

“In the hour of my distress,Sweet Spirit, comfort me.”

“We often wonder that certain men and women are left by God to the commission of sins that shock us. We wonder how, under the temptation of a single hour, they fall from the very heights of virtue and of honor into sin and shame. The fact is that there are no such falls as these, or there are next to none. These men and women are those who have dallied with temptation — have exposed themselves to the influence of it, and have been weakened and corrupted by it.”

“Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is.”