Quotes about Temptation

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.

these errand-boys and furtive and fugitive girls who, ignoring their doom, look in at shop windows? But I am aware of our ephemeral passage.

You can't drive a bayonet through a chap's body in cold blood, he remembered him saying. And you can't go in for an exam. without drinking, said Edward.

Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.

Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.

Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with a glance towards him, "hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur.

Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same.

great men are urged on to the abuse of power (when they need urging, which is not often), by their flatterers and dependents,

lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, work round to the same.

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.

But it's wonderful,' said Mr. Giles, when he had explained, 'what a man will do, when his blood is up. I should have committed murder—I know I should—if we'd caught one of them rascals.