I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.
George Bernard Shaw
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.
Oscar Wilde
I can resist anything but temptation.
Oscar Wilde
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
Oscar Wilde
The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
T. S. Eliot
Why comes temptation, but for man to meet and master and crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedestaled in triumph?
Robert Browning
Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.
Sam Levenson
Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
Robert Orben
For to tempt and to be tempted are things very nearly allied... whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of.
Catherine The Great
Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address.
Lane Olinghouse
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
W. N. Taylor
Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
W. Somerset Maugham
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
Mark Twain
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
George Bernard Shaw
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
George Bernard Shaw
Sometimes it takes courage to give into temptation.
Oscar Wilde
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.
Rita Mae Brown
The temptation to moralize is strong; it is emotionally satisfying to have enemies rather than problems, to seek out culprits rather than the flaws in the system.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
Ambrose Bierce
With the quick access we have to information, the temptation is to overemphasize one number, every jiggle.
Dick Mccabe
The temptation to do remakes is simply that, if the picture worked once in the past, why not try it again?
Peter Bart
To exchange principles for popularity might be a temptation. It's at the core of populism. We must offer something else.
Kjell Magne Bondevik
It's just too accessible. It's too easy. It's too big of a temptation for people.
Richard Hopkins
The temptation to defeat the government will be overwhelming. They know that when this issue fades, their fortunes fade with it, so sooner is better than later.
Allan Gregg
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.
Ring Lardner
The temptation employers are going to be confronted with is to look at this as a way to reduce expenses.
Bob Fredericks
Our challenge is not getting big, and the temptation is great.
Gene Richards
[Some people are in a situation where] the more they deny their temptation, the more likely they are to act on it.
Linda Olson
Overflowing red ink can divide monetary and fiscal authorities on the importance of price stability. Weakening the consensus on fighting inflation only increases the temptation for political meddling in monetary policy.
Dallas Fed
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.
Northrop Frye
My brethren, if you were left to yourselves, you would be overcome by every temptation with which you are beset.
George Whitefield
Administrators, especially in the Los Angeles area, are notorious for not going into the classrooms and seeing what's going on. The temptation exists in social studies to insert your own opinion, and many teachers violate that kind of thing all the time. Who's looking at the teachers to see how well these discussions are being conducted?
Aaron Woods
The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.
Francis Herbert Bradley
We would urge both Congress and our international partners to avoid the temptation to renegotiate the deal.
Robert Joseph
No woman has less temptation to seek matrimony from sordid motives of selfishness or convenience. The actress is an absolutely independent wage-earner, and better compensated than the great majority of women who make their own livelihoods. She need not marry for money, or social position, for these are her natural possessions.
Billie Burke
Vast amounts of money will be poured into stem cell research in the coming decades because everyone thinks that's the future of medicine. The temptation [to cheat] is great.
Dr. Harvey Marcovitch
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.
Anne Baxter
Government means politics, and interference by government carries with it always the implication of coercion. We may accept the expanding power of bureaucrats so long as we bask in their friendly smile. But it is a dangerous temptation. Today politics may be our friend and tomorrow we may be its victims.
Owen D. Young
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.
Gerald Jampolsky
Russia has shown it's not above the temptation of using some bargaining power or blackmail. It shows that if there is a way to get some political-economic advantages from a temporary weakness of your partner, the Russians will use it.
Daniel Gros
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
James Branch Cabell
With the miners looking shaky, the temptation is to look elsewhere; either for earnings certainty or for relative underperformance, and the banks have that in spades.
Michael Birch
I ask you not to put temptation before the students. Speak strongly for healthy foods.
Jim Wilcox
We must learn to do more with temptation than just bear it - we must learn to use it. The secret of using temptation, and turning it to our advantage, is one of life's greatest secrets. Once we have learned it we are unbeatable and unbreakable.
Selwyn Hughes
About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you're fighting temptation.
Tom Wilson
At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
Cesare Pavese
The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.
Thomas Merton
If you have two clerks, there's more of a temptation to resist, which could cause an escalation of the situation. And if it is a truly heinous act of violence, you just put more people at risk.
Jeff Lenard
We avoid that temptation to put in only things we need help with.
Kevin Krone
I am not over-fond of resisting temptation.
William Beckford
There isn't any virtue where there has never been any temptation.
Margaret Deland
Most humans feel the transcendent temptation, the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning.
Paul Kurtz
We usually know what we can do, but temptation shows us who we are.
Thomas Kempis
Good habits result from resisting temptation.
Ancient Proverb
The temptation is to pick the eyes out of the wines to make a great wine, a trophy-winning wine.
David Morris
There is a temptation to take advantage. Just like any other aspect of society, there are the good (music users) and the bad. There are those who comply and those who resist.
Laurence Godfrey
When temptation knocks, imagination usually answers.
Dan Bennett
Spice: The History of a Temptation ... maddeningly disorganized but intriguingly varied and rarely dull.
Jack Turner
By taking away the elite players from the Premiership clubs and leasing them back on an irregular basis, the solid foundation that we have created in the professional era would be weakened. The temptation would be for more clubs to go down the Northampton road and sign more players from overseas, something which would work to the detriment of the national side.
Brian Kennedy
The hot button social issues are really tempting to a candidate in Kentucky because the place is relatively unified on a number of those issues. I would be terribly surprised if candidates didn't give into that temptation this year.
Stephen Voss
The temptation for both sides of this controversy, if they have control of the school board, will be to exaggerate the guidelines, to administer them in a way that is not so neutral. And that may invite more lawsuits.
Paul Rothstein
There's the temptation to update 'The Odd Couple,' to put it in present-day time. I've seen productions like that and I didn't like them.
Joe Ginnane
Lawer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.
H. L. Mencken
Traders and investors alike both succumbed to the temptation to take profits in a variety of commodities that have made big price gains.
David Thurtell
Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in gay, fine colours, that are but skin-deep.
Matthew Henry
The mainstream media may have trouble resisting the temptation to declare that Karl Rove has been demoted, but the truth is quite the contrary. By giving up his role as deputy White House chief of staff, Rove has been freed to do what he does best: shape big issues and develop strategies to win elections.
Fred Barnes
Both sides succumbed to the temptation to attribute to oneself only glory and to accuse one's political rival of all sins, both unintentional and fictitious.
Leonid Kuchma
Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.
Robert A. Heinlein
We could tell he (Thompson) was getting tired in the seventh inning. He started to hang a few pitches. The temptation was to throw him back out there for the eighth because he pitched such a great game but he gave us all he had.
Gary Mcnamara
The temptation to overwhelm them with unjustified employment law, just to placate the trade union movement, must be resisted.
John Cridland
Ivy Leaguers are hard-driving, talented people, and the temptation to get ahead by any means is just as prevalent there. If they see people around them gaming the system, they are quick to pick up on that. Maybe quicker.
Ronald Green
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Ambrose Bierce
TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
Ambrose Bierce
There's going to be a lot of temptation on people around the league this year on (wide receiver) Terrell Owens. I can tell you right now, we won't be involved in that temptation. That's part of the plan.
Dan Henning
Don't let the temptation of deductible mortgage interest steer you away from paying down your mortgage.
Marc Freedman
The concern is the temptation to use the (training) agreement in other ways, either to break a witness or just to harass somebody.
John Trasviña
It was a big temptation to go to Perth, ... I spoke to [coach] John Mitchell, he was very professional and I think he will do a good job.
Tim Donnelly
I could go on and on telling you about clocks but I shall resist the temptation.
Frank King
Every life is march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.
Lyman Abbott
Every hardship; every joy; every temptation is a challenge of the spirit; that the human soul may prove itself. The great chain of necessity wherewith we are bound has divine significance; and nothing happens which has not some service in working out the sublime destiny of the human soul.
Elias A. Ford
Ever notice that the whisper of temptation can be heard farther than the loudest call to duty.
Earl Wilson
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