I can resist everything except temptation.
OSCAR WILDE, Lady Windermere's Fan
He who cannot resist temptation is not a man.... Whoever yields to temptation debases himself with a debasement from which he can never arise.
HORACE MANN, A Few Thoughts for a Young Man
Do you really think ... that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not -- there is no weakness in that.
OSCAR WILDE, An Ideal Husband
Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours that are but skin-deep.
MATTHEW HENRY, Commentaries
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for Revolutionists
God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
BIBLE, 1 Corinthians 10:13
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.
GEORGE ORWELL, Reflections on Gandhi
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.
It is ... no doubt, true that thought will not at once produce wisdom. It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE, The Small House at Allington
Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, "How to Reform Mankind," Works
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
MAE WEST, My Little Chickadee
