41 Quotes On Overcoming Temptation

Temptation is an age-old challenge that everyone encounters at various stages of life. Whether it's the lure of something forbidden or the urge to stray from our goals, resisting temptation is a testament to self-control and inner strength. In this blog post, we dive into an inspiring collection of 41 quotes that capture the essence of overcoming temptation. These words of wisdom, from thinkers, leaders, and visionaries, can serve as a guiding light, reminding us of our capacity to make choices that align with our true values and aspirations. Join us on this journey of reflection and empowerment as we explore the insights offered through these powerful quotes.

1. “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.” - Mae West

2. “I can resist anything except temptation.” - Oscar Wilde

3. “[Referring to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde] ... Will civilization never reach humane ideals? Will men always punish most severely the sins they do not understand and which hold forth for them no temptation? Did Jesus suffer in vain?” - Frank Harris

4. “Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button?Ford Prefect: I wouldn't-Arthur Dent: Oh.Ford Prefect: What happened?Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again.” - Douglas Adams

5. “A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.” - C.S. Lewis

6. “There are two influences ever present in the world. One is constructive and elevating and comes from our Heavenly Father; the other is destructive and debasing and comes from Lucifer. We have our agency and make our own choice in life subject to these unseen powers. There is a division line well defined that separates the Lord's territory from Lucifer's. If we live on the Lord's side of the line Lucifer cannot come there to influence us, but if we cross the line into his territory we are in his power. By keeping the commandments of the Lord we are safe on His side of the line, but if we disobey His teachings we voluntarily cross into the zone of temptation and invite the destruction that is ever present there. Knowing this, how anxious we should always be to live on the Lord's side of the line.” - George Albert Smith

7. “Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. ” - John Dryden

8. “Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.” - Martin Luther

9. “No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.” - George Eliot

10. “You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.” - W. Somerset Maugham

11. “Power was my weakness and my temptation.” - J.K. Rowling

12. “Temptation is the feeling we get when encountered by an opportunity to do what we innately know we shouldn't.” - Steve Maraboli

13. “C’mon good girl, be bad.” - Nicki Elson

14. “Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day," Raquel said firmly. "And I know myself well enough to know how I act around cookies.” - Claudia Gray

15. “The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance.” - Laurence Peter

16. “Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

17. “The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible...The theological question does not arise about the origin of evil but about the real overcoming of evil on the Cross; it ask for the forgiveness of guilt, for the reconciliation of the fallen world ” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

18. “But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

19. “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

20. “Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That reminds me—I spotted something between her legs that made me think of you.” - Tom Stoppard

21. “He whirled in the water and grinned at me. Damn, he was a handsome bastard. I realized he was half-naked. Blue swirls of tattoos painted his chest. When God made that chest, he did to tempt women.” - Ilona Andrews

22. “Man of an hard heart! Hear me, Proud, Stern, and Cruel! You could have saved me; you could have restored me to happiness and virtue, but would not! You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But God will show mercy, though you show none. And where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction. But the day of Trial will arrive! Oh! then when you yield to impetuous passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err; When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon Agnes, and despair of pardon!” - Matthew Gregory Lewis

23. “Knowing was a temptation. What you don't know won't tempt you.” - Margaret Atwood

24. “I once faced a temptation that was so persistent and so overwhelming that I literally believed my whole world would go dark if I refused to give in to it," he said. "All I could do was scream to the Holy Spirit to keep me from it.” - Wesley Hill

25. “I know that whatever the complex origins of my own homosexuality are, there have been conscious choices I've made to indulge - and therefore to intensify, probably - my homoerotic inclinations. As I look back over the course of my life, I regret the nights I have given in to temptations to lust that pulsed like hot, itching sores in my mind. And so I cling to this image - washed. I am washed, sanctified, justified through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Whenever I look back on my baptism, I can remember that God has cleansed the stains of homosexual sin from the crevasses of my mind, heart, and body and included me in his family, the church, where I can find support, comfort, and provocation toward Christian maturity.” - Wesley Hill

26. “I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.” - Edmond De Goncourt

27. “He's pressing me to his chest. I melt. Oh, this is where I want to beI rest my head against him, and he kisses my hair repeatedly. This is home. He smells of linen, fabric softener, body wash, and my favourite smell - Christian. For a moment, I allow myself the illusion that all will be well, and it soothes my ravaged soul” - E.L. James

28. “A relationship is like being in a forest, where snakes lurk awaiting the chance to entice.” - Anthony Liccione

29. “The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.” - Thomas Merton

30. “Despite the weight of the world on my shoulders, the temptation to stop and smell the supernatural roses tugged on my sleeves a time or two.” - John Corwin

31. “What a grand revenge you have taken! I saw you innocent, and I deceived you. Four years after, you find me a Christian enthusiast; you then work upon me, perhaps to my complete perdition! But Tess, my coz, as I used to call you, this is only my way of talking, and you must not look so horribly concerned. Of course you have done nothing except retain your pretty face and shapely figure. I saw it on the rick before you saw me—that tight pinafore-thing sets it off, and that wing-bonnet—you field-girls should never wear those bonnets if you wish to keep out of danger.” - Thomas Hardy

32. “People are rarely diabolic or bent enthusiastically on evil. As a rule, they are only weak; they cannot resist temptation and thus give way to their evil drives.” - Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

33. “The criminalization of debt, then, was the criminalization of the very basis of human society. It cannot be overemphasized that in a small community, everyone normally was both a lender and borrower. One can only imagine the tensions and temptations that must have existed in a community—and communities, much though they are based on love, in fact because they are based on love, will always also be full of hatred, rivalry and passion—when it became clear that with sufficiently clever scheming, manipulation, and perhaps a bit of strategic bribery, they could arrange to have almost anyone they hated imprisoned or even hanged.” - David Graeber

34. “First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.” - Homer

35. “With Stefan, the line between good and evil, right and wrong, becomes increasingly blurred.” - Melika Dannese Lux

36. “The majority enjoy a young girl as they enjoy a glass of champagne, at one effervescent moment-oh, yes, that is really beautiful, and with many a young girl that is undoubtedly the most one can attain, but here there is more. If an individual is too fragile to stand clarity and transparency, well, then one enjoys what is unclear, but apparently she can stand it. The more devotedness one can bring to erotic love, the more interesting. This momentary enjoyment is a rape, even if not outwardly but nevertheless mentally, and in a rape there is only imagined enjoyment; it is like a stolen kiss, something nondescript. No, if one can bring it to a point where a girl has but one task for her freedom, to give herself, so that she feels her whole happiness in this, so that she practically begs for this devotedness and yet is free-only then is there enjoyment, but this always takes a discerning touch” - Soren Kierkegaard

37. “The messengers of Jesus will be hated to the end of time. They will be blamed for all the division which rend cities and homes. Jesus and his disciples will be condemned on all sides for undermining family life, and for leading the nation astray; they will be called crazy fanatics and disturbers of the peace. The disciples will be sorely tempted to desert their Lord. But the end is also near, and they must hold on and persevere until it comes. Only he will be blessed who remains loyal to Jesus and his word until the end.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

38. “Entering the foyer, Royale already decided that he would thank Shake once more for being by his side at Keena’s recital. But she stunned him by eagerly waiting for him just like old times—on her knees wearing only a collar and a leash.” - S.B. Redd

39. “It struck me, sharp and hard, that I had been given so many chances to save my soul that my entire life had been constructed around these chances! That was my nature - going from temptation to temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.” - Anne Rice

40. “Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in.” - Billy Sunday

41. “No matter how many sins you make or how slow you travel back toward God's valley, you are still way ahead of a person who never made a mistake and doesn't know what it is like to climb out of a pit of shame and rise above their temptations.” - Shannon L. Alder