Tempting Quotes

• I can't emphasize this idea enough. Getting involved with your collaborator's problems almost always distracts you from your own. That can be tempting. That can be a relief. But it usually leads to disaster.

  Twyla Tharp

  Ideas, Relief, Problem

  Twyla Tharp (2009). “The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

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

  Will Rogers

  Inspirational, Funny, Success

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• It is so tempting to try the most difficult thing possible.

  Lady Randolph Churchill

  Inspirational, Trying, Difficult

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  Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Relationship, Uplifting

  Benjamin Franklin (2013). “The Art of Virtue: Ben Franklin's Formula for Successful Living”, p.1, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• I don't want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures.

  Greta Garbo

  Stupid, Silly, Men

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• I have been inundated with offers to move into a career in television or film, and these, too, are tempting.

  David Ginola

  Moving, Careers, Television

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• If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's hard to eat spaghetti.

  David Allen

  Education, Perspective, Innovation

  Twitter post from Apr 03, 2009

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• I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.

  Carl Sagan

  Song, Years, Worry

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Thinking, Understanding

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.234, Ballantine Books

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• Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

  Og Mandino

  Inspirational, Failure, Don't Give Up

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• Satan's snares are mostly subtly laid and are the most tempting when the dividing line between right and wrong is so thin as to be imperceptible.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Lines, Satan, Dividing

  Mahatma Gandhi, Anand T. Hingorani, Ganga Anand Hingorani (1985). “The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts”

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• O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!

  William Shakespeare

  Kissing, Nymphs, Perfect

  William Shakespeare, Trevor R. Griffiths (1996). “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, p.159, Cambridge University Press

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• In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.

  Michael Behe

  Serendipity, Luck, Mutation

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• It’s tempting to wish for the perfect boss, the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit. But maybe the best any of us can do is not to quit, play the hand we’ve been dealt, and accessorize what we’ve got.

  Candace Bushnell

  Perfect Parents, Hands, Play

  "Young Anacostia Teacher Built a Family of Admirers" by Joe Holley, www.washingtonpost.com. April 24, 2005.

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• Passivity is corrosive to the soul; it feeds on feelings of integrity and pride, and it can be as tempting as a drug.

  Caroline Knapp

  Integrity, Pride, Passivity Is

  Caroline Knapp (1999). “Drinking: A Love Story”, p.261, Dial Press

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• I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.

  Jodi Picoult

  Mother, Morning, Believe

  Jodi Picoult (2010). “House Rules: A Novel”, p.178, Simon and Schuster

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• Life is always sad. That's what makes suicide so tempting because life is all that we really have and haven't. Death makes us equals, too, because the foul and the good all die. The past, the present, and the future-what escape is there from these? None-and yet sometimes we are life's happy victims.

  F. Sionil José

  Suicide, Past, Life Is

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• For a long time I had not approached the forbidden fruit called happiness, but it was now tempting me with a melancholy persistence. I felt as though Sonoko were an abyss above which I stood poised.

  Yukio Mishima

  Persistence, Long, Fruit

  Yukio Mishima (1958). “Confessions of a Mask”, p.194, New Directions Publishing

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• I beg you both, take heart.'(Varys) 'Whose?' asked Tyrion sourly. He could think of several tempting choices.

  George R. R. Martin

  Heart, Thinking, Choices

  George R. R. Martin (2012). “George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set (Song of Ice and Fire Series): A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and and A Dance with Dragons”, p.1152, Bantam

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• To write is to pour one’s innermost self passionately upon the tempting paper, at such frantic speed that sometimes one’s hand struggles and rebels, overdriven by the impatient god which guides it - and to find, next day, in place of the golden bough that bloomed miraculously in that dazzling hour, a withered bramble and a stunted flower.

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Struggle, Flower, Writing

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• Down in the water, Octavian yelled, “Get me out of here! I’ll kill you!” “Tempting,” Percy called down.

  Rick Riordan

  Water, Octavian

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• When the universe is ephemeral, one can easily feel that human existence is meaningless. Why should I do anything at all? On the other hand it is tempting to try and make the best of it. I'm here, anyway. The imagination won't cope if I try to picture where I'd otherwise be.

  Erlend Loe

  Hands, Imagination, Trying

  Erlend Loe (2011). “Naïve. Super”, p.49, Canongate Books

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• As you grow older, it becomes harder to feel 100 percent happy; you learn all the things that can go wrong, you become superstitious about tempting fate, about bringing disaster upon your life by accidentally feeling too good one day.

  Douglas Coupland

  Fate, Feelings, One Day

  Douglas Coupland (1993). “Shampoo Planet”, p.131, Simon and Schuster

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• It is tempting to call for better leadership, but we probably expect too much from the leaders of the nations. Those nations are too big, the connections not strong enough, the commitment to the future not long enough. It is better to look smaller, to our now-smaller organisations, to local communities and cities, to families and clusters of friends, to small networks of portfolio people with time to give to something bigger than themselves. We have to fashion our own directions in our own places.

  Charles Handy

  Inspirational, Fashion, Strong

  Charles Handy (1995). “The Age of Paradox”, Harvard Business Press

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• A first kiss is hard to fake on screen. It's tempting to practice before you shoot, but why blow that natural awkwardness on a rehearsal? There's something so beautiful about it that can't be faked.

  Maggie Grace

  Beautiful, Kissing, Blow

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