Top 151 Temptation Quotes

Even the acceptance of personal responsibility may not overcome the temptation to believe that now is not the time to repent. ‘Now’ can seem so difficult, and ‘later‘ appear so much easier. The truth is that today is always a better day to repent than any tomorrow.

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

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.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

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.

When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others, I can see them as teachers of forgiveness in my life, reminding me that I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge.

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’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.

The prospects for a coherent, hilarious and consistent American comedy seem to lessen every year, as the poor waterlogged, gassy corpse called ‘Evan Almighty‘ proved when it floated ashore recently. So there’s a temptation to think too highly of Robin Williams‘s uneven but occasionally funny ‘License to Wed.’

So long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, so will the temptation to threaten others with overwhelming military force.

One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception – at least some of the time, incompetent or crazy.

I have learned that as an artist, I cannot succumb to the temptation to please others.

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

These days the temptation to use steroids in sports has become too great for many young athletes.

We need to resist the temptation to create more entitlements and more entitlements, which is one of the reasons we are heading recklessly toward fiscal crisis.

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.

I want to be very careful about judging and how much to generalize about the use of media being pathological. For some people, it’s a temptation and a pathology; for others, it’s a lifeline.

The experiments show quite clearly that, as you resist more and more temptation, you’re actually more and more likely to fail.

It is a temptation for me to wear all my rings at once.

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.

Neither liberal nor conservative politicians can resist the temptation to stand as mighty sequoias of rectitude amid the lowly underbrush of fundraising.

If priests were allowed to marry, if this would be an optional thing, and if he could have wife and children, he would certainly have less temptation to satisfy certain sexual impulses with minors.

What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don’t want to discourage it completely.

Temptation, if it is not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone, beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid.

I can’t resist temptation of any kind.

I think it’s important never to look yourself up on Wikipedia. I think the temptation to correct any interesting factual errors would be too much.

I always wanted to be a main eventer in pro wrestling. I lived my dream, but the excess of the ’80s and the huge money of the ’90s became a great temptation for many of us.

Today, we live in a time of threats like few others in recent memory. During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.

Years ago – I used to be an actor – I was in a production of Vaclav Havel’s ‘Temptation,’ and when we started rehearsals, he was in prison. When we closed the show, he was running for president. And it felt incredibly timely and important and also this lucky thing.

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.

Temptation is impossible for me to resist… Come on. This is Hollywood. It’s in the job description.

Believe it or not, when you fast in the Spirit, God makes you more equipped to deal with hunger, irritability, and temptation.

I look at modern life and I see people not taking responsibility for their lives. The temptation to blame, to find external causes to one’s own issues is something that is particularly modern. I know that personally I find that sense of responsibility interesting.

I am lucky, I don’t have aches and pains. I do Pilates regularly, which is a series of stretching exercises, and I recommend it to anyone of my age because the temptation is not to exercise when you get older. Well, you should.

There’s always the temptation, as a cinematographer, to make the shot look as perfect as possible.

They wanted me to do movies and television when I was very young, and it was a big temptation, but I really thought the only way I could learn the profession was on the stage.

There’s a rising tide of concern among activists, economists, and artists about Africa. Theres a temptation to think of it as a monolith as opposed to all these different countries with different problems.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

There is always a temptation to take things for granted, to get lazy, and to presume that the reader knows more than they do.

When I was a child, the temptation to sin was always a romantic option. This romantic option led me to the cinema, a place where sin was welcome.

Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.

This bizarre industry presents so many paths of temptation. If you don’t have some kind of foundation, typically from family, then it will be difficult to deal with.

Knowledge of God’s Word is a bulwark against deception, temptation, accusation, even persecution.

‘Ernest Borgnine’ is sort of my version of Woody Allen’s ‘Purple Rose Of Cairo’ in that it’s about the occasional difficulty of coming to terms with the cold hard facts and the temptation to escape into another world – like movies, for example. I’m a pro at escaping.

My experiment in money exchange was the temptation to set up a bank. The absence of any Islamic banking was also another factor in establishing Al-Rajhi Bank, which is now the world’s biggest Islamic lender by market value.

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.

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil’s home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves.

The nature of photography has always resisted that temptation of interpretation. I look, and what I see looks back at me.

There is always a temptation for governments: see a problem and announce a quick fix.

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.

Give the composer time to experiment, time to try out ideas. Also, the time to fail. When the composer has very little time, the temptation is to reach for stock ideas – ideas they know will work and have worked in the past.

There’s always a temptation to get in front of the camera. It’s part of my personality.

Once it becomes impossible for members of Congress to make a career of legislative service, the temptation to bend a vote for whatever reason may yield to the better angels of their nature.

Never assume, no matter how strong the temptation, that other people are low-life lying manipulators without a shred of human decency.

Temptation is a woman‘s weapon and man‘s excuse.

Why resist temptation? There will always be more.

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.

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.

We need a liberal agenda in which government resists the temptation to interfere in the lives of individuals but is equally determined to play an active role where creative action can advance the liberties of all.

We must resist the temptation of once again turning America into the traditional bogeyman of the left.

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

Not only did we read a lot at home, we also watched a lot of films. So I had already seen a lot of films that were about the crucifixion and the temptation of Christ, like Bible history and the Ten Commandments – stuff like that.

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.

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.

At ‘GQ,’ there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

Those who believe in the importance of serving others should lead the way by fighting against the temptation we all have, and maybe especially as we age, to close in upon ourselves.

No one is above temptation. No one is above life in general.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.

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.

The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego.

Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?

That’s what I loved about Temptation Island. I don’t even know why they did it.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

When you’re young, the temptation is maybe to think, ‘More is more.’ But a lot of the time less is more.

Remove all the junk from one’s house. Then one doesn’t have to deal with the temptation. If you get hungry enough, you will eat that apple.

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.

There is a temptation for an actor to editorialize what they’re doing. And you can’t do that with Pinter. It’s almost like a musical score. His lines are so specific, but they can mean different things to different people, like an alternating current.

Football made me want to train and stay disciplined. It kept me away from things like drugs. Young people are faced with the temptation to stray all the time.

I retired because I had to, not because I wanted to. The temptation to get back in the ring is very much there.

The temptation, when you go into Kickstarter, is that the first three days are wonderful, and you believe you’re a god. You go in your spreadsheet and think, ‘If every day’s like day one, we’re going to have suitcases of money arriving at the front door.’ Then, it dips into this slump.

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.

You oughtn’t to yield to temptation. Well, somebody must, or the thing becomes absurd.

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.

A lot of times, you’re interacting with people for whom you’re one of the very few veterans that they’ve met or had a lot of interactions with, and there’s a temptation for you to feel like you can pontificate about what the experience was or what it meant, and that leads to a lot of nonsense.

I think temptation is ever present to become something that you think is more socially acceptable.

Temptation to behave is terrible.

I can resist everything except temptation.

Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper bringing-up, a sound set of values – and witnesses.

There’s an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

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.

By the time you’re 18, 19, you know yourself, and you shouldn’t go against your gut feeling, which is a temptation in the first year of university.

The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.

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.

Temptation has been here ever since the Garden of Eden.

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.

Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you.

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.

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

My whole life, I’ve been a Temptation.

I’d never say no to surgery in the future, because I feel like, as I get older, I’m going to face temptation more.

There is a recurring temptation for any nation, and for any writer who operates within its field of force, to make an ornament of the past: to turn the losses to victories and to restate humiliations as triumphs.

The temptation in any approaching crisis or conflict is, because people haven‘t got a clue what lies ahead, they’re always searching into the past for some sort of pattern … to galvanise the nation or their supporters and put themselves on a pedestal to sound Churchillian or Rooseveltian.

Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.

I was born too late to have any temptation with communism, or at least Soviet-type communism. Travelling in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, you clearly don’t want to defend a system that would have empty shops and a totalitarian regime and internal passports.

Imagination is a screen onto which the evil spirits can ‘project’ images, temptations presented as stimulating entertainments, offering us pleasurable rewards if we give in to the temptation.

As first and foremost a character actor, I’ve always resisted the temptation to cure any of the people I’ve played or make them lovable in any way; you’ve just got to celebrate them for what they are.

God’s purpose in creation was to let us prove ourselves. The plan was explained to us in the spirit world before we were born. We were valiant enough there to qualify for the opportunity to choose against temptation here to prepare for eternal life, the greatest of all the gifts of God.

I resist the temptation to curate my apartment.

Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

We usually know what we can do, but temptation shows us who we are.

Vegas is the city of temptation. I think, perhaps, it is an experiment by NASA. If we’re going to send people to Mars, how will we create false economies and cultures to satisfy them? Vegas has the answer. People go there when they’ve nothing left to lose.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.

Temptation is as old as time; or at least, the history of temptation extends as far back as the moment Eve gave Adam that serpent’s apple. But what sets the lady apart from the tramp is the ability to acknowledge she needs to clean up her act – and then, of course, the fact that she actually does clean up her act.

That free will was demonstrated in the placing of temptation before man with the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree which would give him a knowledge of good and evil, with the disturbing moral conflict to which that awareness would give rise.

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.

The first temptation, upon meeting an old friend after many years, is always to – look the other way.

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.

A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

Those who are faithful to God are protected and prospered. That comes as the result of serving God and keeping His commandments. But with those blessings comes the temptation to forget their source. It is easy to begin to feel the blessings were granted not by a loving God on whom we depend but by our own powers.

As a young man, the temptation was to drink the minibar dry. I did all that – now I prefer to get outdoors.

Often the work of the Lord itself may be a temptation to keep us from that communion with Him which is so essential to the benefit of our own souls.

Some are wrong because they are not strong enough to fight temptation and some some are wrong because they do not know.

The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

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.

There is a temptation to have shortcuts and not put in the time and the effort. I think you have to be willing to talk to people and sit sometimes around a table and listen to other people.

No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that is his heart which is capable of responding to it.

I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous.

There is a famous musician, Peter Gabriel, who has used my voice in the movie, ‘The Last Temptation of Christ.’ He used my song in the background.

Artistic self-indulgence is the mark of an amateur. The temptation to make scenes, to appear late, to call in sick, not to meet deadlines, not to be organized, is at heart a sign of your own insecurity and at worst the sign of an amateur.

It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer.

We cannot get by Auschwitz. We should not even try, as great as the temptation is, because Auschwitz belongs to us, is branded into our history, and – to our benefit! – has made possible an insight that could be summarized as, ‘Now we finally know ourselves.’

Too many Christians have a commitment of convenience. They’ll stay faithful as long as it’s safe and doesn’t involve risk, rejection, or criticism. Instead of standing alone in the face of challenge or temptation, they check to see which way their friends are going.

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.

The danger for any artist whose work is both recognizable and critically acclaimed is complacent repetition – the temptation to churn out easily identifiable, eagerly welcomed, and readily salable designs.

I also think we need to maintain distinctions – the doctrine of creation is different from a scientific cosmology, and we should resist the temptation, which sometimes scientists give in to, to try to assimilate the concepts of theology to the concepts of science.

Judges need to restrict themselves to the proper resolution of the case before them. They need to avoid the temptation to set broad policy.

Virtue is a positive quality developed by taking a firm stand for the right in temptation, or by the suffering endured in consequence of wrongdoing.

For any filmmaker who has just released a film and who is experiencing some measure of success, the temptation can be great to respond to every screening request that comes in.

I think it’s easier to be cynical. I think the temptation, often, among writers is to write about anything other than real, true, deep feelings.

American populism is no stranger to our political life. From the earliest anti-Federalists to William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, and George Wallace, and many in between, we’ve sampled the populist temptation, often in times of national distress and dislocation.

In Christ we see a maturity of love that flowers in self-sacrifice and forgiveness; a maturity of power that never swerves from the ideal of service; a maturity of goodness that overcomes every temptation, and, of course, we see the ultimate victory of life over death itself.

Resist the temptation to subject yourself only to that which re-affirms what you already think.

Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in.

There has always been discouragement, negativism, and temptation in the world because of Lucifer.

It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.

Change can be frightening, and the temptation is often to resist it. But change almost always provides opportunities – to learn new things, to rethink tired processes, and to improve the way we work.

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?