Temptation Quotes - Page 36

• Two ideas militate against our consciously contributing to a better world. The idea that we can do everything or the conclusion that we can do nothing to make this globe a better place to live are both temptations of the most insidious form. One leads to arrogance; the other to despair.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Ideas, Two, Arrogance

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• I would urge my fellow conservatives to avoid the temptation to crow about it or take credit.

  Gary Bauer

  Crow, Credit, Urges

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• In many ways, large profits are even more insidious than large losses in terms of emotional destabilization. I think it's important not to be emotionally attached to large profits. I've certainly made some of my worst trades after long periods of winning. When you're on a big winning streak, there's a temptation to think that you're doing something special, which will allow you to continue to propel yourself upward. You start to think that you can afford to make shoddy decisions. You can imagine what happens next. As a general rule, losses make you strong and profits make you weak.

  William Eckhardt

  Strong, Loss, Winning

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• Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. Learn to become wise. Desire nothing, give up all desires and be happy. The real spiritual progress of the meditator is measured by the extent to which they achieve inner tranquility and freedom from desire.

  Sivananda

  Wise, Spiritual, Giving Up

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• All suicides have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide. Every one of them knows very well in some corner of his soul that suicide, though a way out, is rather a mean and shabby one, and that it is nobler and finer to be conquered by life than to fall by one's own hand.

  Hermann Hesse

  Suicide, Fall, Mean

  Hermann Hesse (1983). “Steppenwolf”, Bantam

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• To those men and women in business, remember the ultimate end of your work: to make a better product, to create better lives. I ask you to plan for the longer term and avoid that temptation of quick and easy paper profits.

  George H. W. Bush

  Business, Men, Paper

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• Would you be free from the condemnation of the sins that are past, from the power of the temptations that are to come? Then take your stand on the Rock of Ages. Let death, let the grave, let the judgment come, the victory is Christ's and yours through Him.

  Dwight L. Moody

  Past, Rocks, Victory

  Dwight L Moody (1897). “God's Good News”, p.43, Moody Publishers

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• Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Dread

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• There is a cure for temptation. What? Yielding to it.

  Honore de Balzac

  Cures

  Honore de Balzac (2006). “Le Pere Goriot: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.217, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• It is ill changing the creed to meet each rising temptation. The soul is truer than it seems, and refuses to be trifled with.

  James Anthony Froude

  Soul, Rising, Creeds

  James Anthony Froude (1849). “The Nemesis of Faith”, p.182

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• Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Wealth, Snares

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.187

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• The Lord is well aware of our mortality. He knows our weaknesses. He understands the challenges of our everyday lives. He has great empathy for the temptations of earthly appetites and passions.

  Joseph B. Wirthlin

  Passion, Empathy, Challenges

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• Sometimes the devil tempts me to believe in God.

  Bill Vaughan

  Believe, Atheism, Devil

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• Soul's Castle fell at one blast of temptation, But many a worm had pierced the foundation.

  William Allingham

  Soul, Foundation, Castles

  William Allingham, Helen Paterson Allingham (1912). “Poems”

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• There's a great temptation to clean everything up and make everything more perfect. You have to know when to stop and stop doing it, or you might end up with something that sounds metronomic.

  David Byrne

  Perfect, Sound, Might

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. September 22, 2008.

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• The Spirit of man is like a kite, which rises by means of those very forces which seem to oppose its rise; the tie that joins it to the earth, the opposing winds of temptation, and the weight of earth-born affections which it carries with it into the sky.

  Coventry Patmore

  Mean, Men, Sky

  Coventry Patmore (2016). “The Rod, the Root and the Flower”, p.9, Lulu.com

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• I'm glad that I didn't have the Internet when I started writing. I started writing when I was 20 and didn't show a word of it to anyone until I was 28. I had the sense to keep it to myself. Now the temptation with blogs and such, they're just getting it out there; maybe it would have been best to keep it to themselves.

  David Sedaris

  Writing, Internet, Shows

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• There's a lesson in every temptation.

  Frank Herbert

  Lessons

  Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.363, Penguin

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• The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation--religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.

  Lord Acton

  Fighting, Evil, Giving

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.30, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred.

  C. P. Scott

  Truth, Integrity, Media

  'Manchester Guardian' 5 May 1921

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• Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is afar higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expecting some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Christian, Brother, Taken

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 109), 1895.

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• Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Age, Weakness, Lines

  "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes". Book by Rutherford B. Hayes, 1922 - 1926.

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• Human character is never found "to enter into its glory," except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation.

  James Martineau

  Character, Battle, Affliction

  James Martineau (1879). “Hours of thought on sacred things, sermons”

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• The opposite of love? Vice. Temptation. The negative influences that we have. The bad energy that comes around us and makes us do certain things. To me, it's always been a war between the two.

  Kendrick Lamar

  War, Opposites, Two

  Interview with Erykah Badu, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 23, 2013.

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• I am persuaded that in the case of elected officials, the overwhelming temptation is to conclude that it is more important for your constituents that you be reelected than that you deal honestly with them.

  James L. Buckley

  Important, Cases, Overwhelming

  James L. Buckley (2010). “Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State”, p.246, ReadHowYouWant.com

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