quotations about temptation
There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
If you want to prevent short-term temptations from derailing important long-term goals, you can change the way you think about those temptations. Focusing on the specifics of those temptations--particularly their desirable characteristics--makes it harder to resist those temptations. Thinking about the temptations abstractly, though, makes them less likely to engage your motivation to act. And that helps you to continue to do things that will help you to achieve those long-term goals.
ART MARKMAN
"Note to Self: It Is Easiest to Avoid Abstract Temptations", Psychology Today, April 14, 2017
Temptation would be a lot easier to avoid if we didn't meet it in such gay company.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Temptations are an heavy burden; too heavy for any to bear, if God did not strengthen them. Tempted souls wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with Principalities and Powers; and therefore they need greater strength than their own.
WILLIAM NOTCUTT
A Treatise of Temptations
Temptations are meant to deceive us. They are aimed at our weak spots.
RAYMOND MAHER
"Don't sit near the fire if your head is made of butter", The Battlefords News-Optimist, March 16, 2017
Temptations lead you to hide from the Lord and you go off with your fault, with your sin, with your corruption, far from the Lord.
POPE FRANCIS
Mass at Santa Marta, February 10, 2017
The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
G. C. LICHTENBERG
Aphorisms
He that tempted Christ will not be expected to spare men.
ST. BERNARD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Satan tempts the ambitious man with a crown, the sanguine man with beauty, the covetous man with a wedge of gold; he provides savory meat, such as the sinner loves.
T. WATSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
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.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought.
MARGARET OLIPHANT
Miss Marjoribanks
Temptations should end in victory.
J. NEWTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Imitation of Christ
Temptations come to us because we are open to them. Perhaps we don't want to be delivered from temptation, at least certain ones. Sometimes we are like little Richard who was told by his mother to come straight home from school and not to stop at the baseball field. After school, Richard decided to carry his ball and glove with him just in case he was tempted.
RAYMOND MAHER
"Don't sit near the fire if your head is made of butter", The Battlefords News-Optimist, March 16, 2017
The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance.
LAURENCE J. PETER
Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times
The mother who tries to keep her child away from all temptation simply prepares the boy for a terrible fall when he gets old enough to leave the home. It is not by taking away the bonds, it is by giving strength to the man that he may break the bonds, that he is redeemed. Every man is like a Samson bound by his enemies, and he must acquire the strength within himself to break them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Every yielding to temptation is a hindrance, not a help, to moral development; but every temptation offers what, rightly employed, is an indispensable means of moral development. For all moral development is through temptation to virtue.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Imitation of Christ
The temptations are everywhere -- on the Internet, in the family medicine cabinet, and on the street.
HATTIE BERNSTEIN
"What are your kids hiding in their rooms?", Boston Globe, February 24, 2017
The Bible uses the word tests, temptations, and trials almost interchangeable because the same word used for tests, temptations, and trials comes in the Greek word "peirasmos" and means "an experiment, a trial," or "proving" so God doesn't send tests or trials to break us but to strengthen our faith but to also show us how weak or strong it is. God isn't trying to find out something about our faith; He already knows all that there is to know about us. He is interested in our proving to ourselves the depth or shallowness of our faith.
JACK WELLMAN
"Does the Bible Teach God Will Not Give Us More Than We Can Handle?", Patheos, January 5, 2017