temptation Quotes

“You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?” “No!” cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.” His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. “Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”

“Knowing was a temptation. What you don’t know won’t tempt you.”

“He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.”

“Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.”

By making himself a priest made himself a demon.

But alas, if I have not maintained my victory, it is God’s fault for not making man and the devil of equal strength.

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

“As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor... Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason.”

“When an ancient temptation or trial becomes a feature in the culture, a way of life that is expected and encouraged, Christians have a stumbling block put before them that is hard to recognize for what it is, for it has been made into a monument, gilded with bronze and bathed in decorative lights.”

“Weak things were often beautiful, weak things were never good.”

The devil will try any trick to keep God’s people out of spiritual warfare... he has everything to gain by it.

“All these things, and their like can be occasions of sin because, good though they are, they are of the lowest order of good, and if we are too much tempted by them we abandon those higher and better things, your truth, your law, and you yourself, O Lord our God.”

″‘The king who owned this island,’ said Caspian slowly, and his face flushed as he spoke, ‘would soon be the richest of all kings of the world. I claim this land for ever as a Narnian possession. It shall be called Goldwater Island. And I bind all of you to secrecy. No one must know of this. Not even Drinian – on pain of death, do you hear?’ ‘Who are you talking to?’ said Edmund. ‘I’m no subject of yours. If anything it’s the other way round. I am one of the four ancient sovereigns of Narnia and you are under allegiance to the High King my brother.’ ‘So it has come to that, King Edmund, has it?’ said Caspian, laying his hand on his sword-hilt.”

“The desire for fame tempts even noble minds.”

“This was exactly the reason I needed space from him. I couldn’t think straight when he was this close, nor did I have the energy to keep pushing him away, especially when his proximity was the only thing that quelled the growing volcano inside of me.”

“It’s a temptation that exists for everyone- for talk and hype to replace action.”

“The truth is always an insult or a joke, lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone’s comfort.”

“My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me.”

“Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall,”

“Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. No wonder I do not know how deeply involved I have been with sin.”

“A man should go where he won’t be tempted.”

“I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to capture the grand prize.”

“It’s tempting, but really, I don’t even know him that well and this feels like the start of every Lifetime movie Tori Spelling ever died in.”

“This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. I know that you intend to use it only for the good of your Abbey, Matthias; do so, but never allow yourself to be tempted into using it in a careless or idle way.”

“When whispers of wickedness stirred in his head, he adjusted his whiskers and stayed home instead.”

“The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics, to get their approval.”

“Maybe that’s what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.”

″‘I was greatly tempted to let out,’ said Oliver, ‘but the fact is- I know you’ll jeer, Wray- the fact is, I’ve been trying feebly to turn over a new leaf this term.‘”

“What do you do when you meet with an irresistible temptation?”

It’s all very well to say resist temptation, but it’s ever so much easier to resist it if you can’t get the key.

I feel that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It’s at times like this I’m sorry I’m not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will be in future. But somehow it’s hard to carry out your resolutions when irresistible temptations come.

“How he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him,—a big, heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly Black Man offers his book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among the trees; and they are to write their names with their own blood. And then he sets his mark on their bosoms!

“And does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive?”

Jo, dear, we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them.

“Sit down and think of your own sins, don’t go making me add to mine.”

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.