I can’t resist temptation of any kind.
The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.
When you really put your heart and soul into something, the temptation is to try to be in control of circumstances, however you can, and looking and seeing how people are responding. But I realized, early on, that that was just not going to be a healthy thing for me to do.
If it is indeed impossible – or at least very difficult – to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
I think it’s the tendency to want to create gods and monotheistic absolutes and absolute certainties that is the continual temptation in human thought – that’s the great danger. Every time we create a god, we diminish humanity.
The biggest temptation I believe is to feel comfortable, to feel like you’ve worked through all of that here on Earth, and are satisfied with this life.
Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.
When you’re first starting out, there’s always the temptation to hide behind distortion because it lets you get away with murder. But, when it comes to rhythm work, you’ve gotta back off that gain control a bit, especially if you’re playing with another guitarist.
I try to avoid the temptation with time as a total indicator for what my possibilities are for the marathon. It’s the not the best indicator, but it’s more how you feel, how you cover the distance and how you are able to do the training afterward.
Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes.
As exercise is necessary to the development of physical muscle, so development of the moral nature is accomplished through temptation. The soul being given choice, may exercise it in whatever direction it chooses, for it learns just as well by its mistakes as by right action in the first place, perhaps even better.
The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.
I think there’s a temptation to try to think of people who don’t vaccinate as a homogenous community, but I’m not convinced that’s true. I’m not even sure that the word ‘community’ is totally accurate there, you know.
Early on in the writing process, there is sometimes this temptation to write around the central drama instead of just aiming for the bull’s-eye. The bullseye is harder to hit, of course, but it’s so much more satisfying when you do.
Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics – one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis.
The travail of freedom and justice is not easy, but nothing serious and important in life is easy. The history of humanity has been a continuing struggle against temptation and tyranny – and very little worthwhile has ever been achieved without pain.
Players who win on a clay surface are those who can control the ball, playing steadily and accurately from the back-court, keeping the ball in play and moving it around with changes of speed and spin, and resisting the temptation to over-hit.
It is a temptation for me to wear all my rings at once.
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
The people ask much, often more than any government can give. We must resist the temptation to promise solutions to all problems.
People naturally long for a bit of the wealth that is whorling all around them, and if the work and education available to them won’t get them closer to the comforts that they see others enjoying, the temptation to take shortcuts can be fierce.
The most important thing is that we are on the right path, and we will not deviate from it, even in the face of strong temptation to choose temporary gains over long-term benefits.
I think temptation is ever present to become something that you think is more socially acceptable.
The Puritans left behind so full a record of what they thought and did that scholars cannot resist the temptation to make the most of it.
I think in YA there’s sometimes a temptation to create heroines who are infinitely resilient and wise and confident because those are the behaviors we want to see teens embrace and maybe we want to see those things in ourselves.
My parents taught me to react quickly when temptation comes and to say ‘No!’ instantly and emphatically. I recommend that same counsel to you. Avoid temptations.
Never assume, no matter how strong the temptation, that other people are low-life lying manipulators without a shred of human decency.
No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that is his heart which is capable of responding to it.
In popular Egyptian and regional culture, women are seen as weak, easy victims to temptation in the same way Eve couldn’t resist that shiny apple in the Garden of Eden.
The one thing you can’t do is get carried away with that pace and bounce. There’s a temptation to charge in and just slam the ball into the pitch and you can end up bowling too short. You still have to bowl the right length so that you threaten to take wickets.
Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper bringing-up, a sound set of values – and witnesses.
The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.
Once you make a movie like ‘Superbad,’ when it’s popular and you’re the lead, you get offered all kinds of things and there’s a temptation to make bad movies either for the money or to maintain your relevance in pop culture.
There is a temptation in politics to look for simplistic slogans and to play the game in a way that looks like you’re a savvy politician.
I like to talk to myself ahead of time so when temptation comes, I’ve already made up my mind that I have the victory.
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.
Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.
For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it’s time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.
We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.
It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don’t work that way. There was a temptation in the early ’70s to reconsider. I decided against it.
No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.
These days the temptation to use steroids in sports has become too great for many young athletes.
Believe it or not, when you fast in the Spirit, God makes you more equipped to deal with hunger, irritability, and temptation.
I struggle just like everybody else struggles. It’s always a struggle in life to overcome temptation. I just try and get through it. No one is perfect.
Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse.
I’m not an original member, though I’m sort of an original member. I’ve been on a lot of records and took them to great heights. For them to make me the sixth Temptation is quite an honor.
Let a man be but in earnest in praying against a temptation as the tempter is in pressing it, and he needs not proceed by a surer measure.
It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.
In emerging markets, slow growth in the advanced economies has shut down a traditional development path: export-led growth. As a result, emerging markets have had to rely once again on domestic demand. This is always a difficult task, given the temptation to over-stimulate.
The whole mystery of temptation is to have sins suggested to us, and to be swept after them by a sudden enthusiasm, which sometimes feels as strong as the Spirit of God ever made in us the enthusiasm for virtue.
Temptation coaxes us toward sin, and sin leads to sickness and death, and ultimately confinement in the realm of the evil one.
I retired because I had to, not because I wanted to. The temptation to get back in the ring is very much there.
