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The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
OSCAR WILDE, The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Why comes temptation but for man to meet
- And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
- And so be pedestaled in triumph?
ROBERT BROWNING, The Ring and the Book
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
No man knows what he will do till the right temptation comes.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
Temptation cannot exist without the concurrence of inclination and opportunity.
E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words
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 enemies outside the castle seeking entrance. If there be no false retainer within who holds treacherous parley, there can scarcely be even an offer.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
To go into temptation to find how strong you are, is as wise as to go before a mirror, with closed eyes, to find how you look when asleep.
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
MAE WEST, My Little Chickadee
The most formidable attribute of temptation is its increasing power, its accelerating ratio of velocity. Every act of repetition increases power, diminishes resistance. It is like the letting out of waters--where a drop can go, a river can go. Whoever yields to temptation, subjects himself to the law of falling bodies.
No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.
It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of; for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in this field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.
E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words
A coat that is not used, the moths eat; and a Christian who is hung up so that he shall not be tempted--the moths eat him; and they have poor food at that.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
We find many things, to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
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