Quotes about temptation

Each temptation leaves us better or worse neutrality is impossible.

The devil doesn’t need to invent any new temptations the old ones work as well as they ever have.

Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.

A thought enters we pamper it it germinates and grows into an evil act.

Temptation is the feeling we get when encountered by an opportunity to do what we innately know we shouldn't.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

If you give in to temptation, you may have a moment of enjoyment, but then you'll have a lifetime of regrets.

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, howe

What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?

God tests, but he does not tempt.

It is a horrible thing that those who oppose Christ oppose themselves and in their opposition to Christ they are bound by Satan and enslaved by his lies and temptations.We may rightly say; "I once was blind but now I see." Now as we have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit we should be able to care enough about those who are still bound to pray that God would have the same mercy on them that he has given freely to us."C R Lord 2017

Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day," Raquel said firmly. "And I know myself well enough to know how I act around cookies.

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

One month. Thirty days. I could bury myself in my art and forget the feel of his lips sliding across mine. I could forget the scent of his cologne, the way my body reacted when he touched me. I sighed. Thirty days suddenly seemed like an eternity.

It’s always the ones we’re not supposed to have who are the most irresistible.

I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?

we will never be tempted to live by the standards of other people or to be guided by someone else’s opinions if we know who we are

But that's one way we can identify the devil's voice: It always plays to our fears. It is the voice that tells us we must do something to prove who we are, to prove that we're worthy, to prove that we are who God has already declared us to be. When we know we are loved by God, we don't have to prove anything to anyone. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves more beloved than we are.

Perhaps the Lord has warned you that areas of your life that will harm you if you don't do something about it. Perhaps you have tried to barricade yourself from temptation or sinful habits by avoiding the issue. What you can't see won't hurt you, or so you try to convince yourself. Perhaps you've tried to resist temptation through sheer willpower and positive confession. You've discovered how flimsy your self-defense strategy is. Look around; the Lord has provided a way of escape. Walk through i

The devil will suggest some activities to you to make you leave your primary goal

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, "may

Man does not live by bread alone.

The debris of her married life was enough to sever the tie between reality and dreams, the fine line between desire and temptation. Where did she draw the line? When did she admit defeat and surrender?

Give us an intense distaste for things that displease You and a renewed pleasure in things that bring You honor and magnify Your truth.

The second cause whence these rebellions sometimes proceed is the devil, who, in order to disquiet and disturb the soul, at times when it is at prayer or is striving to pray, contrives to stir up these motions of impurity in its nature; and if the soul gives heed to any of these, they cause it great harm. For through fear of these not only do persons become lax in prayer—which is the aim of the devil when he begins to strive with them—but some give up prayer altogether, because they think that t

believe me...Nothing is bad, just proove it as right

Hope is a fire more ravenous than the flames of temptation.  For if only a portion of it poisons your veins, it is enough to make you stand against ridiculous odds again and again and again.

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 o

God can make good use of all that happens, but the loss is real.

So if you, O subsequent ones, ever deign to look down at us from your summit of effortless superiority, remember that you have only scaled it on the back of our efforts. For it is thankless to grope in the dark and tempting to rest until the light of understanding shines upon us. But if we are led into this temptation, your kingdom will never come.

I cannot say enough of appreciation for your determination to live by the standards of the Church, to walk with the strength of virtue, to keep your minds above the slough of filth which seems to be moving like a flood across the world. Thank you for knowing there is a better way. Thank you for the will to say no. Thank you for the strength to deny temptation and look beyond and above to the shining light of your eternal potential.

The Christian does not avoid sin to achieve salvation, but rather salvation brings him to a desire not to sin. The closer that one's spirit is synchronized with the holy knowledge of God, the more he comprehends how and why sin is destructive to himself and others in each and every circumstance. The dwindling desire for sin is a premature gift of Heaven - where there will be no sin, where all will, too, possess that full and complete wisdom; all will have perfect reasons not to sin. In this way,

Knowing was a temptation. What you don't know won't tempt you.

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.

There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride. They have yielded to the perennial temptation.

The promise of power wasn't enough, he thought. So now she tempts me with knowledge.

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?

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.

You taste like the last drop of whiskeyat 3 amafter a lousy daylike the first gulp of coffee on a Monday sipped behind a deskhot and bitterlike the burning at the back of the throatafter the first cigaretteYou taste, boy oh boy, like my next mistake.

God will never tempt you. It's not in His nature. In fact, He promises to provide an escape route for every tempting situation. But I can promise you this: God will test your faith. And those tests won't get easier. They will get progressively harder as the stakes get higher. And those tests will undoubtedly revolve around what is most important to you...God will test you to make sure your identity and your security are found in the cross of Jesus Christ. And God will go after anything you trust

Too often there is this sinister greed that pulls at my coattails, subtly whispering in the ear of my soul that it is within my rights to tuck away a few dark trinkets to toy with when the tedium of righteous living gets a bit boring. But God would suggest that I empty my pockets.

Tomorrow's character is made out of today's thoughts. Temptation may come suddenly, but sin doesn't.

I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.

But it may be that I betrayed myself. Since Dorcastle, my ability to supress my emotions has diminished. I know feelings are showing, not in ways which commons might see, but clearly enough for Mages to spot. My elders could well have decided that I am ruined, that my contact with you has corrupted me beyond correction." ..."What does it take to corrupt a Mage, anyway?""I told you. They thought that you had attempted to seduce me. Perhaps they thought that you had already succeeded despite my de

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.

The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible...The theological question does not arise about the origin of evil but about the real overcoming of evil on the Cross; it ask for the forgiveness of guilt, for the reconciliation of the fallen world

Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free

It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ

Man no longer lives in the beginning--he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end. He sees that his life is determined by these two facets, of which he knows only that he does not know them

You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it--all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.

The strongest Christian is unsafe among occasions to sin (519).

But I was immobilized—less by another’s static imposition than by my own static will. For the enemy had in thrall my power to choose, which he had used to make a chain for binding me. From bad choices an urge arises; and the urge, yielded to, becomes a compulsion; and the compulsion, unresisted, becomes a slavery—each link in this process connected with the others, which is why I call it a chain—and that chain had a tyrannical grip around me. The new will I felt stirring in me, a will to 'give y

Satan’s chief device of temptation is to attack the truth of God.

What you have made me see,' answered the Lady, 'is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet is has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one’s mind. Then, may it be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before–that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or set

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.

Believe me...Nothing is bad or wrong , just prove it as right

Believe me...Nothing is bad, just prove it as right

Here’s a hand to the boy who has courageTo do what he knows to be right;When he falls in the way of temptation,He has a hard battle to fight.Who strives against self and his comradeWill find a most powerful foe.All honor to him if he conquers.A cheer for the boy who says, “No!”There’s many a battle fought dailyThe world knows nothing about;There’s many a brave little soldierWhose strength puts a legion to rout.And he who fights sin singlehandedIs more of a hero, I say,Than he who leads soldiers

I have a deep appreciation for anything that challenges my morality. I tend to wonder which thing or person might overpower my beliefs and would I avoid it altogether in order to say, "It didn't conquer me," or would I accept the challenge head-on in an attempt to prevail? Which requires greater courage?

It takes a Bigger Courage to take on Danger, where None can be Sighted.

Well, Mr Markham, you that maintain that a boy should not be shielded from evil, but sent out to battle against it, alone and unassisted - not taught to avoid the snares of life, but boldly to rush into them, or over them, as he may - to seek danger rather than shun it, and feed his virtue by temptation - would you-''I beg your pardon, Mrs Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life - or even wilfully to seek temptation for th

Temptation is a strong weapon that Satan uses against the children of God

Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants.

Follow both: the call of the mountain of enlightenment and the temptation of the valley of experience. No mountain without valley, no valley without mountain.

When we are needy Christ does His best work, but be warned. Someone, maybe even some well-meaning soul, is going to tell you, “Don’t worry. God will never give you more than you can handle.”I double-dog-dare you to find that in the scriptures. The closest you can come is found in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to e

Entering the foyer, Royale already decided that he would thank Shake once more for being by his side at Keena’s recital. But she stunned him by eagerly waiting for him just like old times—on her knees wearing only a collar and a leash.

Temptation is stronger in the minds of people who are in doubt. Prayer makes it weaker.

Power was my weakness and my temptation.

Mind is greedy. When you sense the benefits with people who previously thought rubbish about you, the mind forgoes those thoughts and inclines toward those people only to gain optimal benefits.

Temptation turns you. It makes you into something you never dreamed, it presses you to give up everything you ever loved, it calls you to sell your soul for one, fleeting moment.[..] It makes you ache...you'll make any promise,swear any oath. For one...perfect...unsoiled taste

There is power in controlling something that can do so much damage-in controlling something, period.

If you are facing some kind of temptation, remember that it is within your power to get the victory over it.

I knew how one climbing the mountain of worldly success can slip down into the river below without being conscious of the descent till he is already drowning.

Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul,Pointing out the way to infamy and shame." - Creon

Hard to say what's right when all I wanna do is wrong.

But a good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, and keep him more independent.

There are two influences ever present in the world. One is constructive and elevating and comes from our Heavenly Father; the other is destructive and debasing and comes from Lucifer. We have our agency and make our own choice in life subject to these unseen powers. There is a division line well defined that separates the Lord's territory from Lucifer's. If we live on the Lord's side of the line Lucifer cannot come there to influence us, but if we cross the line into his territory we are in his

I wonder if pain comes from surrendering or resisting?

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]

But what if you are a smart girl in love? All because I was a book nerd didn’t mean, I didn’t feel, I didn’t want. Shylock had cried out in excess of pain, “If you prick me do I not bleed!” But a book nerd is not allowed to be human, to say “you make me melt” and still have her mind want something else entirely?

There are many roads in this world that will guide you to pleasurable, fun, and exciting destinations that do not end in any form of lasting happiness. So before you step on an enticing path, figure out where it leads.

Every temptation comes with a choice.

Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. observed, "The Devil did not tempt Adam and Eve to steal, to lie, to kill, to commit adultery; he tempted them to live independently of God.

The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.

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.

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.

With every morn my life afresh must breakThe crust of self, gathered about me fresh;That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shakeThe darkness out of me, and rend the meshThe spider-devils spin out of the flesh-Eager to net the soul before it wake,That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake.George MacDonald

Freedom from sin is only granted to Christians. Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells believers that they have not been seized by any temptation that cannot be overcome. He is not talking to non-Christians, who Paul establishes elsewhere are controlled by the sinful flesh and cannot do anything spiritually pleasing to God (Rom. 8:7-8)...."...walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh..."(Gal 5:16-17). Again, this command is to Christians. Unbelievers cannot "wa

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.

A man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he is weary; while the root abides in strength and vigour, the beating down of the present fruit will not hinder it from bringing forth more. This is the folly of some men; they set themselves with all earnestness and diligence against the appearing eruption of lust, but, leaving the principle and root untouched, perhaps unsearched out, they make but little or no progress in this work of mortification.

Whether or not I protect the weeds isn't a matter of just recognizing the weed for what it is, but possessing the conviction to grab hold of the roots and yank like my life depends on it.

The things that tempt us do not come from external persuasions…they originate from our very own hearts. They’re conceived there, entertained by our thoughts and then acted upon. Our hearts need daily scrubbings and consistent discipline to battle against its baleful wishes. Knowing and shedding light upon our heart’s darkness with honest accountability is a good first step towards an untainted ticker! ~Jason Versey

Not to be daily employing the Spirit and new nature for the mortifying of sin is to neglect that excellent succor which God has given us against our greatest enemy. If we neglect to make use of what we have received, God may justly hold his hand from giving us more. His graces, as well as his gifts, are bestowed on us to use, exercise, and trade with. Not to be daily mortifying sin is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who has furnished us with a principle of

Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head. Men may come to that, that sin may not be heard speaking a scandalous word in their hearts - that is, provoking to any great sin with scandal in its mouth; but yet every r

What Saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it?

One gives way to the temptation, only to rise from it again, afterwards, with a great eagerness to reestablish one's dignity, as if it were a tombstone to place on the grave of one's shame, and a monument to hide and sign the memory of our weaknesses. Everybody's in the same case. Some folks haven't the courage to say certain things, that's all!THE STEP-DAUGHTER: All appear to have the courage to do them though.

I did not intend making a philippic against covetousness, a sin to which I believe no one here is addicted. Let us not, however, plume ourselves in not being guilty of a vice to which, as we have no natural bias so in not committing it, we resist no temptation. What I meant to insist on was, that exchanging a turbulent for a quiet sin, or a scandalous for an orderly one, is not reformation.

We need more worship wars, not fewer. What if the war looked like this in your congregation--the young singles petitioning the church to play more of the old classics for the sake of the elderly people, and the elderly people calling on the leadership to contemporize for the sake of the young new believers? This would signal a counting of others more important than ourselves (Phil 2:3), which comes from the spirit of the humiliated, exalted King, Christ (Phil 2:5-11).