Tempted Quotes - Page 4

• Plato said that poets should be excluded from the ideal republic because they are such liars. I am a poet, and I affirm that this is true. About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives; I know one of them who has floated at least five versions of his autobiography, none of them true. I of course - being also a novelist - am a much more truthful person than that. But since poets lie, how can you believe me?

  Margaret Atwood

  Plato, Liars, Lying

  "Margaret Atwood : Writing Philosophy". Waterstone's Poetry Lecture, Delivered At Hay On Wye, canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca. June 1995.

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• I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist. I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.

  Prince Philip

  Animal, Numbers, Nwo

  Foreword to "If I Were an Animal" by Fleur Cowles, 1987.

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• I'm not advocating the strenuous life for everyone or trying to say it's the choice form of life. Anyone who's had the luck or misfortune to be an athlete has to keep his body in shape. The body and mind are closely coordinated. Fattening of the body can lead to fattening of the mind. I would be tempted to say that it can lead to fattening of the soul, but I don't know anything about the soul.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Athlete, Choices, Soul

  Ernest Hemingway, Matthew Joseph Bruccoli (1986). “Conversations with Ernest Hemingway”, p.176, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.

  Ronald Reagan

  Believe, Government, Self

  First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1981

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• Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance.

  Og Mandino

  Pride, Giving, Water

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• A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also bound to confess that a fortunate inferiority prevents him personally from making such mistakes.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mistake, Men, Inferiority

  "Charles Dickens: A Critical Study". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1906.

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• Whenever I see people with their collars up, I'm tempted to point it out to them like you would for someone who has a food stain on their shirt or food in their teeth, as if to say, 'Your fashion sense is so offensive I'm assuming it's some sort of accident you'll want to fix.

  Stephan Pastis

  Fashion, People, Want

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• Whenever I may be tempted to slack up and let the business run for awhile on its own impetus, I picture my competitor sitting at a desk in his opposition house, thinking and thinking with the most devilish intensity and clearness, and I ask myself what I can do to be prepared for his next brilliant move.

  Harry Gordon Selfridge

  Running, Business, Moving

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• People ask 'do you make a conscious effort not to swear?' - if you're doing silly stuff you're not tempted to put swearing in. All the comics from my childhood, who were funny without swearing, were the people that influenced me. What I do is quite traditional anyway.

  Tim Vine

  Silly, People, Childhood

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• The sign of the cross is the most terrible weapon against the devil. Thus the Church wishes not only that we have it continually in front of our minds to recall to us just what our souls are worth and what they cost Jesus Christ, but also that we should make it at every juncture ourselves: when we go to bed, when we awaken during the night, when we get up, when we begin any action, and, above all, when we are tempted.

  John Vianney

  Jesus, Night, Soul

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• Human lives seldom conform to the conventions of fiction. Chekhov says that it is in the beginnings and endings of stories that we are most tempted to lie. I know what he means, and I agree.

  Wallace Stegner

  Lying, Mean, Fiction

  Wallace Stegner (2007). “Crossing to Safety”, p.163, Modern Library

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• Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.

  John Dryden

  Imagination, Might, Shut Up

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden now first collected ...”, p.121

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• Every time I come across a rattlesnake on my farm I initially react in fear and am tempted to kill it. Then I realize I wouldn't want to live in a world where all wild things - without and within - are domesticated.

  Sam Keen

  World, Want, Realizing

  Source: www.spiritualityandpractice.com

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• Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for excuses to gossip. When I am tempted to criticize I will bite on my tongue; when I am moved to praise I will shout from the roofs.

  Og Mandino

  Gossip, Scratches, Tongue

  Og Mandino (2011). “The Greatest Salesman in the World”, p.51, Bantam

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• I suppose that one is always tempted to challenge those who think that they and they alone possess the truth or the way or the key to the mystery.

  Gore Vidal

  Thinking, Keys, Challenges

  Gore Vidal (2002). “Creation: a novel”, Doubleday Books

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• I have no desire to go anywhere near drugs. People say, "Aren't you tempted?" No, because of the ridiculousness of it.

  Robin Williams

  People, Drug, Desire

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz , one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.

  Denis Diderot

  Book, Dark, Talent

  'Oeuvres complètes' (Complete Works), Volume 7, p. 678,

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• As a boy, I once saw a cart of melons that sorely tempted me. I sneaked up to the cart and stole a melon. I went into the alley to devour it, but no sooner had I set my teeth into it, than I paused, a strange feeling coming over me. I came to a quick conclusion. Firmly, I walked up to that cart, replaced the melon - and took a ripe one.

  Mark Twain

  Boys, Feelings, Teeth

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• It is a silent, shady place, with a paved courtyard so full of echoes, that sometimes I am tempted to believe that faint responses to the noises of old times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down.

  Charles Dickens

  Believe, Echoes, Sound

  Charles Dickens (1851). “The posthumous papers of the Pickwick club. The old curiosity shop and other tales”

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• Congress will be tempted to wipe their hands of this, go to the Election Day and say 'we've done our part' and that's where groups like ours, Concerned Veterans for America, veterans across the country have to keep the heat on them to say this is just the start. VA is not fixed.

  Pete Hegseth

  Country, Hands, America

  "Records show Obama met just once with Shinseki during VA scandal" by Mike Emanuel, www.foxnews.com. August 7, 2014.

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• To be tempted is not to sin. The strongest attacks are made on the strongest forts.

  Dwight L. Moody

  Sin, Made, Forts

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• I am never tempted to pray but when a warm feeling for my friends comes athwart my heart.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Prayer, Heart, Feelings

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Jefferson Papers [1770-1826”

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• When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Temptation, Secret, Asks

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.258, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Inspiring visions rarely (I'm tempted to say never) include numbers.

  Tom Peters

  Numbers, Vision

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• Think of one person who you are tempted for any reason to withhold love from, and pray for their happiness. In that moment your pain will stop.

  Marianne Williamson

  Pain, Thinking, Old Love

  FaceBook post by Marianne Williamson from Jan 01, 2013

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