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TEMPTATION quotes
I see the devil's hook, and yet cannot help nibbling at his bait.
To be like Christ in this world we must, more or less, be the subjects of temptation. But He instantly and successfully resisted temptation, so that though tempted, He was "without sin." We also, to carry out the Christian character, must resist, to complete victory, all the temptations with which we may be assailed.
Temptations without imply desires within; men ought not to say, "How powerfully the devil tempts," but "How strongly I am tempted."
Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.
Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them.
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 the field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.
The temptation is not here, where you are reading about it or praying about it. It is down in your shop, among bales and boxes, ten-penny nails, and sandpaper.
Bearing up against temptations and prevailing over them is the very thing wherein the whole life of religion consists. It is the trial which God puts upon us in this world, by which we are to make evidence of our love and obedience to him, and of our fitness to be made members of his kingdom.
If there were no evil in ourselves there could be no temptation from without, for nothing evil could seem pleasant.
Most confidence has still most cause to doubt.
Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.
Do all that you can to stand, and then fear lest you may fall, and by the grace of God you are safe.
No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.
The devil tempts us not. It is we tempt him, beckoning his skill with opportunity.
As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptations we resist.
Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory.
Temptations are a file which rub off much of the rust of our self-confidence.
To realize God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.
When I cannot be forced, I am fooled out of my integrity. He cannot constrain if I do not consent. If I do but keep possession, all the posse of hell cannot violently eject me; but I am cast out when I cowardly surrender to his summons. Thus there needs no more to be my undoing but myself.
The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.
The difference between those whom the world esteems as good and those whom it condemns as bad, is in many cases little else than that the former have been better sheltered from temptation.
A vacant mind invites dangerous inmates, as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments.
To resist temptation once is not a sufficient proof of honesty. If a servant, indeed, were to resist the continued temptation of silver lying in a window, when he is sure his master does not know how much there is of it, he would give a strong proof of honesty. But this is a proof to which you have no right to put a man. You know there is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
That fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which, therefore, the true value cannot be assigned.
Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath.—For occasions do not make a man frail, but show what he is.
God chooses that men should be tried, but let a man beware of tempting his neighbor. God knows how and how much, and where and when. Man is his brother's keeper, and must keep him according to his knowledge.
Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of "Fire! " under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and rouse every muscle to its highest tension.
St. Augustine teaches that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is Eve; and the reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.
God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.
The time for reasoning is before we have approached near enough to the forbidden fruit to look at it and admire.
When the flesh presents thee with delights, then present thyself with dangers; where the world possesses thee with vain hopes, there possess thyself with true fear; when the devil brings thee oil, bring thou vinegar. The way to be safe is never to be secure.
Temptation in the line of duty God has provided for; but for temptation sought and coveted, God has no provision.
No one can ask honestly or hope fully to be delivered from temptation unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
To pray against temptations, and yet to rush into occasions, is to thrust your fingers into the fire, and then pray they might not be burnt.
After listening to thousands of prayers for pardon to offenders, I can hardly recall a case where I did not feel that I might have fallen as my fellowman has done, if I had been subjected to the same demoralizing influences and pressed by the same temptations.
It is one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking.
When devils will their blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows.
Lie in the lap of sin, and not mean harm? It is hypocrisy against the devil: They that mean virtuously, and yet do so, the devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!
Sometimes we are devils ourselves, when we will tempt the frailty of our powers, presuming on their changeful potency.
Do not give dalliance too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw to the fire in the blood.
Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.
He who has no mind to trade with the devil, should be so wise as to keep away from his shop.
No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation-free; let no man boast that he was never tempted, let him not be high-minded, but fear, for he may be surprised in that very instance wherein he boasteth that he was never tempted at all.
Learn to say "No"; it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.
Every temptation is great or small according as the man is.
If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbor?
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
To attempt to resist temptation, to abandon our bad habits, and to control our dominant passions in our own unaided strength, is like attempting to check by a spider's thread the progress of a ship borne along before wind and tide.
No degree of temptation justifies any degree of sin.
When a man resists sin on human motives only, he will not hold out long.
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