Temptation Quotes (274 Quotes)
Find Temptation books & products @ Amazon
- A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.
(Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose")
>> More Umberto Eco Quotations...
- To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet. For as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all. His words reach where others fall short. A silly song of Shakespeare's has done more for the poor and the wicked than all the preachers and philanthropists in the world.
(Virginia Woolf, "Orlando")
>> More Virginia Woolf Quotations...
- I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one's memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred.
(Salman Rushdie, "Midnight's Children")
>> More Salman Rushdie Quotations...
- Where was the Jew in him? You couldn't find it and yet you knew it was there. Where was the irrationality in him? Where was the crybaby in him? Where were the wayward temptations? No guile. No artifice. No mischief. All that he had eliminated to achieve his perfection. No striving, no ambivalence, no doubleness- just the style, the natural physical refinement of a star.
(Philip Roth, "American Pastoral")
>> More Philip Roth Quotations...
- You must talk to me, Caravaggio. Or am I just a book? Something to be read, some creature to be tempted out of a loch and shot full of morphine, full of corridors, lies, loose vegetation, pockets of stones.
(Michael Ondaatje, "The English Patient")
>> More Michael Ondaatje Quotations...
- The silence was always the greates temptation.
(Markus Zusak, "The Book Thief")
>> More Markus Zusak Quotations...
- Knowing was a temptation. What you don't know won't tempt you.
(Margaret Atwood, "The Handmaid's Tale")
>> More Margaret Atwood Quotations...
- I think sometimes there might be an advantage in making people aware how worn and stale these old transgressions are. It might take some of the shine off them for those who are tempted.
(Marilynne Robinson, "Gilead")
>> More Marilynne Robinson Quotations...
- But if you happen to be a man, sometime in the future, and you've made it this far, please remember: you will never be subject to the temptation or feeling you must forgive, a man, as a woman. It's difficult to resist, believe me. But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.
(Margaret Atwood, "The Handmaid's Tale")
>> More Margaret Atwood Quotations...
- The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect--but, nearly invariably, the stupidest.
(Isaac Asimov, "Foundation")
>> More Isaac Asimov Quotations...
- I felt an unrelenting restlessness. It was the first time I had ever experienced jealousy, and that emotion clung to my skin day and night like a dark stain, a contamination I could not shed; it became so unbearable that when finally I rid myself of it, I was freed forever of the desire to possess another person or the temptation ever to belong to anyone.
(Isabel Allende, "Eva Luna")
>> More Isabel Allende Quotations...
- Power was my weakness and my temptation.
(J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows")
>> More J.K. Rowling Quotations...
- I couldn't resist the temptation to tease Pyle - it is, after all, the weapon of weakness and I was weak.
(Graham Greene, "The Quiet American")
>> More Graham Greene Quotations...
- But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And could thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracles and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of their heart? ... and thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to god and not ask for a miracle.
(Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov")
>> More Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotations...
- The very good people did not convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands - and you hated the things it asked of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before - and it's better than anything I've known.
(Edith Wharton, "The Age of Innocence")
>> More Edith Wharton Quotations...