"Temptation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which furnish more matter of expense, more temptation to oppression, or more means and instruments of corrupt influence, than advantage to justice or political administration, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... perfect Man been limned with so persuasive a combination of strenuous thought and gracious word.'[32] 'He who makes merely a normal man of Jesus,' he says, 'can never do justice to His greatness.'[33] Yet while he protests rightly against emptying our Lord's life of all real growth and temptation, and the claim of practical omniscience for His humanity (conceptions of Christ's Person surely nowhere entertained by first-class theologians), he leaves us in no manner of doubt that he does not attach a divine worth to Jesus, nor regard Him in the scriptural sense as the Supreme ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... had flung open a wardrobe door, and the costumes disclosed, though not numerous, were of beautiful coloring and design. Winnie, unable to resist the temptation, fingered them lovingly, and called my attention to certain ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... tell a thing precisely As it is; don't try to make It more fine and entertaining; Tell the truth for Truth's dear sake. Never lay a finger, darling, On what is not quite your own, Lest temptation overtake you, And ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... boy doing gardening work behind the house. Mark remained for nearly an hour concealed behind the hedge in hopes that he would come nearer. At the end of that time, however, he went into the house, and after waiting another ten minutes Mark also left, resisting the temptation to walk along the road and take a closer look at it, for he felt that such a step would be dangerous, for should the man notice anyone looking at the place his ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... seemed suspicious, and lifted their graceful heads in a quick, nervous manner, glancing timidly around with their large, gentle eyes, and sniffing doubtfully. At that moment a third deer appeared close to Tranta, and the temptation was too great. With one swift spring Tranta landed on the deer's back, his teeth in its throat. It was a merciful death, for Tranta never let go until the deer ceased to struggle, and then he promptly proceeded to make ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... chamber all alone, Kneeling on the floor of stone, Prayed the Monk in deep contrition For his sins of indecision, Prayed for greater self-denial In temptation and in trial; It was noonday by the dial, And the Monk ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as confessors. Out of confession none must speak with her confessor without the permission of her superioress, who shall not give leave unless there be sufficient reason for it. For although one may have a scruple or a temptation, this can be deferred to the next confession. An exception must be made for the superioress herself, for it is needful that she speak often with him, but not always necessary for her to take him up to ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... fallow-deer, and they were extremely fat and delicious venison; but their horns were still in velvet, and would not be clean until October. I could have shot several of these animals; but I was full of good resolutions to resist all temptation, and to restrict my shooting ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... professional prospects. It's better as it is. What earthly chance have I got of marrying unless I can get work of my own? It's all I can do to keep myself decently. I've no right to dream of asking any one—to say nothing of Sylvia—to marry me. I should only be rushing into temptation if I saw any more of her. She's not for a poor beggar like me, who was born unlucky. Well, whining won't do any good—let's have a look at Beevor's ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... ready to stand up for the other side; that a general ought rather to lessen in his men their solicitude of preserving themselves than to increase it; that by such means they will be in a double fear of hazarding their persons, as it will be a double temptation to the enemy to fight with greater resolution where so great booty and so rich spoils are to be obtained; and this very thing has been observed in former times, notably to encourage the Romans against the Samnites. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... two hundred and five men, two hundred and fifty women, and two hundred and eighty-five children, or a total of seven hundred and forty; and the proportion in the others was similar. The trade of slave hunting was so lucrative that even a Great King could not resist the temptation of having a share in ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... The temptation was too great. First, there was his love of sweet things; then his long-accustomed habit of never denying himself anything he wanted, if he could get it by fair means or foul. And his lessons in honour had been learnt such a little ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... related the miracles wrought by them. And when Blanka knelt in prayer before a statue of the Madonna, he withdrew respectfully to a distance. It was an earnest petition she offered before the blessed Virgin, a prayer for rescue from her enemies, and for strength to resist every temptation. And she knew not that her rescuer and her tempter were one and the same person, and that he stood there behind her at that ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... as he alighted, giving his steed in charge to a servant, and came up the veranda steps. "I have been out in the field for some hours, overseeing the work of my men, saw you passing a few moments since with your mother, and could not resist the temptation to leave them and come in for a bit of chat with her ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... while, Samuel began to think; and then scruples troubled him. He was riding free; but was he not really stealing? And would his father have approved of his doing it? He had begun his career by yielding to temptation! And this at the suggestion of a young fellow who boasted of drinking and thieving! Simply to start such questions was enough, with Samuel; and he made up his mind that when he reached the city the first thing he would do would be ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... great means of our improvement. I do not know: but this I do know, the troubles are here, and God is love. At least this is comfortable, that God will let no man be tempted beyond what he is able: but will with the temptation make a way for us to escape, that we may be able to bear it. At least this is comfortable, that our prayers are not needed to change God's will, because his will is already that we should be saved; because we are on his side in the battle ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... Smith to talk with her, to show her how ungrateful it would appear to leave a home of such comfort—how wicked it was to be ungrateful! But Frado replied that she had had enough of such com- forts; she wanted some new ones; and as it was so wicked to be ungrateful, she would go from temptation; Aunt Abby said "we mustn't put ourselves in the way ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... beloved Clotilda, do not fret yourself needlessly about the past; it is all over, and, as you say, I am unfortunately a prisoner in the house from the gout, which shields me from the temptation." ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... do. Several years after our first meeting in Cambridge, he went to live in New York, a city where money counts for more and goes for less than in any other city of the world, and he could not resist the temptation to write more and more when he should have written less and less. He never wrote anything that was not worth reading, but he wrote too much for one who was giving himself with all his conscience to his academic work in the university honored by ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the temptation, and began to move about, speaking to the mules and, horses, taking down saddles and bridles. She must not be too quiet, or they might suspect something, and come down sooner to see if she were still there. She ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... cloud which hangs over the creation, we discern rays of light and hope; and gradually come to see in suffering and temptation proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... contributed to build a meeting house for him. His influence among the common people was such that the government would willingly have bestowed on him some municipal office: but his vigorous understanding and his stout English heart were proof against all delusion and all temptation. He felt assured that the proffered toleration was merely a bait intended to lure the Puritan party to destruction; nor would he, by accepting a place for which he was not legally qualified, recognise the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was not used as much as the river for skating; but this winter the ice was as smooth and solid as if it had been frozen artificially, so the High School boys and girls could not resist the temptation to skim ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... startle your visitor," went on the Chancellor, keenly watching the young man's extraordinarily handsome face. "She would not dare take the risk and drive out with you, great as the temptation would no doubt be, did she dream that he would learn of the escapade, and follow. Indeed, your Royal Highness must have found subtile weapons ready to your hand, that you so soon broke through the armor of her prudence. ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... upon the trifles which have the most momentous influence upon the fortunes of peoples and the fates of empires. A famous and facile French playwright derived the downfall of a favorite and of a political revolution from the spilling of a glass of water. There are times when the temptation to pursue this thread of fancy is very great. Suppose, for instance, it had not chanced to rain on a certain day at Clifden, when a cricket match was being played in which Frederick, Prince of Wales, happened to be interested. A fretted Prince would ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... right, child. I am childish to indulge the supposition of my Hebrew maiden's treachery. She is pure before the Lord, loyal and true to the faith of her fathers. But we must be armed against temptation, and before we part for the day, we must both swear eternal fidelity to our creed. These wily Christians may come with flattery and smiles, and some one of them might steal my Rachel's heart. I swear, therefore, by all that is sacred on earth ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... going on? Why not put an end to everything? He could make it appear an accident. Nobody would be the wiser. The temptation was growing stronger every second, when ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... "There was the usual legend in his dirty windows that all drinks must wait until he came back, which is a fearful temptation to temperance people to wish that he would never ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... none of his temptation, he found himself repeatedly on the dangerous brink of sentimentality. Since coming to West Point he had seen many charming girls, yet not one who appealed to him as did this dainty one from his own home town and the old, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... and Rolf had passed the settlements of Glens Falls, Fort Edward, and Schuylerville, and guided their heavily laden canoe on the tranquil river, past the little town of Troy. Loafers hailed them from the bank, but Bill turned a deaf ear to all temptation; and they pushed on happy in the thought that now their troubles were over; the last rapid was past; the broad, smooth ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... on through the heat of the day, in rear of the 14th Brigade, and kept our march discipline without trouble, though the number of apple- and pear-trees on the road was a great temptation. What had happened or where we were going to was a complete mystery; all that we knew was that we had had to leg it at Le Cateau, but that we were distinctly not downhearted; nor did the Germans seem to be pursuing. So we thought that we should ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... argued: she never would. Argument availed naught. The Paris germ was deep-rooted in the feminine mind of America: the women acknowledged that they were, perhaps, being hoodwinked by spurious French dresses and hats; that the case presented by Bok seemed convincing enough, but the temptation to throw a coat over a sofa or a chair to expose a Parisian label to the eyes of some other woman was too great; there was always a gambling chance that her particular gown, coat, or hat was ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... the matter, he formed the additional resolution, that he would not communicate the intelligence save personally, and to both the Princes while together, perhaps because he felt that to mention so well contrived and hopeful a scheme to Louis whilst in private, might be too strong a temptation to the wavering probity of that Monarch, and lead him to assist, rather than repel, the intended sally. He determined, therefore, to watch for an opportunity of revealing the secret whilst Louis and Charles were met, which, as ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... with their southern and eastern neighbours, though without any important results; the sterility of the soil throughout the whole of the region of sand, affording little temptation to its inhabitants to dispossess each other of their ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... showing, as it does, the steady and rapidly increasing tendency of the people of the plain to seek a home in cities and villages, notwithstanding the great temptation which fertile, cheap, and easily-improved lands hold out to become tillers of the soil and growers of cattle. Stock farming is largely remunerative, but our western people—wild and uncultivated as they are supposed to be by those ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... boats, he saw, were making for Tanna Fort: the Kent's for Aligarh. But one of the latter was heading straight for the sloop. Desmond could not resist the temptation to a joke. Making himself look as important as he could, he stood by the gunwale watching with an air of dignity the oncoming of the boat. It was in command of a young lieutenant. The men bent to their oars with a will, and Desmond could soon hear the voice of the officer as he ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Confession of Newton Edwards—The foul Plot fully Explained Eugene Pearson's Guilt clearly Proven—A Story of Temptation and Crime 154 ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... majority of heifer calves; some will be famous for getting fine bulls, and others for getting fine heifers, while others produce little to boast of in the one or the other. No one can affirm that he has a first-class sire till he has been tested. If the result be satisfactory, money should be no temptation; he must not be sold. It must not be forgotten that the male has most influence in breeding; but without first-class females the descendants will not shine generally in the show-yard. Breeding for the show-yard must not be left to haphazard; ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... accrued to him from his professorship. To arm himself against the allurements of pleasure and the artifices of the devil, he began to wear a rough hair shirt under his clothes, and to inure himself to fasting, watching, and prayer. In the night, if any temptation of concupiscence arose, he got out of bed and plunged himself into the cold river. After this he visited churches, reciting the psalter while he performed this devotion, till the church office began. He not only gave much away in alms, but was seldom without ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... two ways of it, Simon," said the minister. "Either ye are the victim of witchcraft, or ye are a self-deluded man. If the former (whilk I am loth to believe), then it behoves ye to watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation. If the latter, then ye maun put a strict watch over a vagrant fancy, and ye'll be quit o' ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... eagerly, for the odour was tempting. "No," I said, resisting the temptation. "Give us hold," and the next minute I was on my way back with the basin and a spoon ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... he had drugged others had begun to make him drunk also. He sought a tepee where the wife of another chief was alone, and at his light call she stood at the entrance and heard him longer than she had ever listened to him before. But she withstood the temptation that was strong in the young chief's looks and words. She did not speak much, but laughed unsteadily, and, shaking her head with averted eyes, left him, and went where several women were together, and ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... hardly anything is known of his relations with the other sex save that he took a keen and lifelong interest in the Foundling Hospital. But so strong had the habit of making masterpieces become with him that he could not resist the temptation to create just one more, even when he had nothing better than "Susanna" to base it on; just as a confirmed drunkard cannot resist the temptation to get one drink more, even if he be accustomed to the gilded chambers ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... most effective condemnation of an objectionable word or phrase is that it is not found in scholarly works, and a student who has once learned the rich stores of vigorous, beautiful, exact, and expressive words that make up our noble language, is by that very fact put beyond the reach of all temptation ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... withdrawal; others, extraordinary delight on the part of the Turks to see them clearing out. I don't believe in either theory. The Turks have been fought to a standstill and there is no attack left in them—not under any circumstances or temptation; that is what I believe in my heart, otherwise I would refuse point blank to strip myself of two full divisions under their noses. Still, it is nervous work presuming to this extent upon their fatigue and I will not agree to ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... looked steadily upon him. "Go sir, and let this hour and this interview pass from your memory. If you are wise, you will forget it. Be just to me, sir. If I have betrayed the existence of any feeling towards you warmer than respect, it has been under sudden and strong temptation. As a man of honor, you must keep ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... appears to have believed that the mystery of the Incarnation was concealed from Satan, and that the Temptation was an endeavour to ascertain whether Jesus was the Son of God or no. Cf. Milton, Par. ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... delightful places imaginable. The men are not very anxious to begin hunting. A little delay means cooler weather for the meat. It is cool up here, but going back across the desert it will be warm for a while yet. Still, when they see elk every day it is a great temptation to ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... all direct discussion of the Lingard element in their fate. D'Alcacer was fine enough to be aware that those two seemed to understand each other in a way that was not obvious even to themselves. Whenever he saw them together he was always much tempted to observe them. And he yielded to the temptation. The fact of one's life depending on the phases of an obscure action authorizes a certain latitude of behaviour. He had seen them together repeatedly, communing openly or apart, and there was in their way of joining ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... the strength of the temptation? It is very simple, no one could help making it. To be spectator of the height of anything—the best, the climax—makes any mortal's pulses run. Beauty, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had done in his grief expressed more than a syllable of the pain he had endured. The only full voice to such grief would have been the wrecking of the world. Strange that he could now look calmly into this abyss, without the temptation to go mad. But its very ghastliness turned his thought into another channel. The woman who had led him into the pit, what of her? Free from the tyranny of her beauty, he saw her with all her loveliness, merely the witch of the abyss, the flower and fruit of ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... be seasons of fierce temptation when the witness is not clearly discerned; but we may rest assured that if our hearts cleave to Jesus Christ and duty, He will never leave or ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... lawyer, and was junior attorney to his father's great business. It was because he had the real business gift, not because he had a brilliant and scholarly mind, that his father had taken him into his concerns, and was the more unforgiving when he gave way to temptation. Otherwise, he would have pensioned Jim off, and dismissed him from his mind as a useless, insignificant person; for Horace, Anacreon, and philosophy and history were to him the recreations of the feeble-minded. He had set his heart on Jim, and what Jim could do and would do ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... equal terms; and that fact had strengthened their friendship. But Caroline was quite safe, and Lady Sellingworth from time to time had realized that for her life might possibly still hold peculiar dangers. There had been moments in those ten years of temptation, of struggle, of a rending of the heart and flesh, which nobody knew of but herself. But as the time went on, and habit more and more asserted its sway, they had been less and less frequent. Calm, resignation had grown ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... sound of voices or of life. It was very reposeful (when one felt one could get away for a little while), but I think the absolute calm and monotony would pall upon one, and the "Call of the World"—the struggling, living, joyous world outside the walls—would be an irresistible temptation. ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... Temptation came to me today, And oh, I felt that I must stray Down primrose paths, forgetting all.... The city's fevered, siren call Spoke to my soul, its whispered cry Said, "Live, for Youth, too soon, ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... he feels uncertain, he should call in a specialist in mental disease, and then act accordingly. If he is convinced that the patient has made the resolution to overcome his morbid appetite, and has so far resisted the temptation to injure any one, he should strengthen the patient's resistance by doing everything possible (except marriage) to rid him of his malady; he should make him aware how dangerous his condition is to himself and to others; he may even recommend either castration or masturbation in ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... resist the temptation to gather in the spoils as a souvenir of the event, snatched this metal headgear up. Then he rushed headlong after Tom, who was making off down the slope at ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... yards in front of the hearse and the bearers each his proper position, two on each side. As the procession turned into the main road, they saw Snatchum standing at the corner looking very gloomy. Hunter kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and affected not to see him, but Crass could not resist the temptation to indulge in a jeering smile, which so enraged Snatchum that he ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Prince found himself alone he began to be tormented by pangs of curiosity as to what the room in the tower contained. For two days he resisted the temptation to go and look, but on the third he could stand it no longer, and taking a torch in his hand he hurried to the tower, and unfastened one lock after the other of the little iron ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... into the empty pockets, and sent the happy mothers to buy all the comforts they needed; others led the drunken men out of temptation, and took them home to find safer pleasures there. Fires were kindled on cold hearths, tables spread as if by magic, and warm clothes wrapped round shivering limbs. Flowers suddenly bloomed in the chambers of the sick; old people found themselves remembered; ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... aware that if I wished to husband the little that still remained to me I ought to eat; but the mere idea of eating excited so violent a repugnance, that it was with the utmost difficulty I resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to pitch my slender stock of sea-sodden biscuit overboard. On the other hand, I was consumed with a torturing thirst that I vainly strove to assuage by so reckless a consumption of my equally slender stock of ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... everything that could suggest painful ideas, and the taint of his egotism is on a considerable class of current literature which serenely ignores the morbid aspects of life. Art has yielded to the same temptation. The artist has felt that he was concerned only with strength, beauty, and grace; that he had nothing to do with weakness, agony, wretchedness, and death. Why should sorrow find perpetual remembrance in art? Pain will tear our bodies, but we will have no wrinkles on our statues; suffering ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... local decisions to local officials, to provide for long-range sufficiency in energy and national security needs. I resisted the immense pressures of an election year to open the floodgates of Federal money and the temptation to promise more than I could deliver. I told it as it was to the American people and demonstrated to the world that in our spirited political competition, as in this chamber, Americans can disagree ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Therefore, since my acquaintance were pleased to think my poor endeavours might not be unacceptable to my country, I imposed on myself, as a maxim never to be swerved from, that I would strictly adhere to truth; neither indeed can I be ever under the least temptation to vary from it, while I retain in my mind the lectures and example of my noble master and the other illustrious Houyhnhnms of whom I had so long the honour to be an ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... which know best what qualities are necessary to constitute a good officer, which appreciate perfectly the necessity of having good officers, not only to their efficiency and success in the field, but to their well-being at all times—just such troops seem least able to resist the temptation of electing some good-natured fellow, whom they will never respect, and will, perhaps, grow ashamed of, rather than men who will enforce their obedience, but promote alike their efficiency and their comfort. At all times they will look to and rely upon the good ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Bloundel, austerely. "She has been taught to resist temptation in whatever guise it may present itself; and if the principles I have endeavoured to implant within her breast had found lodgment there, she would have resisted it. I am deeply grieved to find this is not the case, and that she must trust to others for protection, when she ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... taken back to Newgate, preparatory to his removal to the colonies. In a fanciful passage in one of his early essays he had fancied himself 'lying in Horsemonger Gaol under sentence of death' for having been unable to resist the temptation of stealing some Marc Antonios from the British Museum in order to complete his collection. The sentence now passed on him was to a man of his culture a form of death. He complained bitterly of it to his friends, and pointed out, with a good deal of reason, some people may fancy, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... seated with his documents before him in the light of a broad window, perhaps arrived at some knotty point which wanted consideration, and turning from the crabbed papers, which would not fit themselves in, with that delight in a lawful interruption and temptation to idleness which only hard-working students know. Much has been said about the misery of such interruptions to the absorbed writer, but no one has pointed out the occasional relief and comfort which they bring. Buchanan must have hailed this ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... he said, "that when any individual feels disposed to violate the divine commandment by taking, under such circumstances, that which does not belong to him, he will feel within him the promptings of patriotism and religion, and that he will turn away from the temptation. Let him remember that he is doing a great injustice to his country and his class,—that though he may perhaps benefit materially for a while, yet that ill-gotten gains will not prosper." Where crofters have been evicted, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... staggered; he looked about him as one amazed. He had kept this back as the last, the supreme temptation, the very last card in his hand; and he had played it, and behold, it proved ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... and smuggling. All revenue laws should be simple in their provisions and easily understood. So far as practicable, the rates of taxation should be in the form of specific duties, and not ad valorem, requiring the judgment of experienced men to ascertain values and exposing the revenue to the temptation of fraud. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... slavery was supposed to be maintainable by law in Massachusetts, there was a particular temptation to Negroes for taking Indian wives, the children of Indian women being ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Cascade, or, as it is generally called, Little Montreal River. Johnston and Woolsey came up during the night. Next morning an Indian came from a lodge, leading a young otter by a string. The animal played about gracefully, but we had no temptation to purchase him with our faces set to the wilderness. At the latter place, which is on a part of the Sandy-bay of Graybeast River, the trap formation, which is the copper-bearing rock, is first seen. This rock, which forms the great peninsula of Kewywenon, rises into cliffs on ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... enough to hear them talk, but could understand nothing. Early in the morning I came in with the rear-guard, the enemy advancing his pickets and main guards only, and making no effort at all to press us. Once I couldn't resist the temptation to fire into a squad that came bolder than the rest, and the two shots were good ones. We received a volley in return that did come very close among us, but hurt none of my party. Very soon after our rear-guard was aboard, General Sherman learned from Admiral Porter that McClernand had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... should be the dupe in such a union? Where can I find one so lovely and so innocent,—where one whose virtue has been tried by such temptation? Does even a single breath of slander sully the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... years, and yet not a single instance of their violating the laws of chastity has ever been known. This cannot be said of the French, or of the English, whenever Indian or other women have fallen into their hands. I am no advocate for temptation; yet must say, that bundling has prevailed 160 years in New England, and, I verily believe, with ten times more chastity than the sitting on a sofa. I had daughters, and speak from near forty years' experience. Bundling takes place only ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... difficult for me to withstand the temptation to tell what has befallen some of my men since the regiment disbanded; how McGinty, after spending some weeks in Roosevelt Hospital in New York with an attack of fever, determined to call upon his captain, Woodbury Kane, when he got out, and procuring ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... he had no temptation to risk his life—you see it wasn't as in war with a lot of comrades watching ready to advertise a man as a coward for staying alive—so he argued with Bogan and tried to get him to listen to reason, and swore at him. 'I'll make it damned hot for you, Bogan,' ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... pleasures of my heart, you have shared them all, I feel it, I know it, I see it. And now, at this moment, as I receive this delicious proof of the constant sympathy of our hearts, I must go.... Cunning schemes for getting rid of him have crossed my mind too often; the temptation might be irresistible ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... horse" who was nominated in that year, declared, in accepting the nomination, that "reform should be thorough, radical, and complete." He promised not to be a candidate for a second term, thus avoiding the temptation, to which almost every President has succumbed, of using the patronage to secure his reelection. The party managers pretended not to hear these promises. And when Hayes, after his inauguration, actually began to put them into force, ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... before. There is one respect, indeed, in which the identity fails,—He was "yet without sin;" but this recoil of His Holy nature from moral evil gives Him a deeper and intenser sensibility towards those who have still corruption within responding to temptation without. ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... kill a buffalo, or some other head of game. Then, as he knew well, the hunters with him would feast upon meat until they could scarcely stir, and that would be his opportunity. Nahoon, however, might not succumb to this temptation; therefore he must trust to luck to be rid of him. If it came to the worst, he could put a bullet through him, which he considered he would be justified in doing, seeing that in reality the man was his jailor. Should this ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... and much perplexed; then opening them again, and looking about him, cried out a second time with less surprise, and smiling at the various objects before him, "Great God! I commit myself into the hands of thy providence, preserve me from the temptation of Satan." Then shutting them again, he said, "I will go to sleep until Satan leaves me, and returns as he came, were I to wait till noon." They did not give him time to go to sleep again as he promised himself; for Strength of Hearts, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... of material forces, it is the reaction of his subjective half which sees HOW GOOD material things are; or, in other words, "and following Virgo calms his rage again." The masculine half, or positive force of the soul, yields to temptation and is soothed by ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... an appeal to his gallantry was well-nigh irresistible, and for a moment it seemed as if he would yield to the temptation to essay a brilliant contradiction; but his wits came to his rescue, for quickly realising that not only were the frowning rocks of offence to be avoided, but likewise the danger of floundering helplessly about in the inviting quicksands ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... malady. This was to me a severe disappointment, who felt an intense desire to climb to the crown of the rock, and survey the noble landscape at my feet. I yielded at last to the wishes of my husband, who did not himself resist the temptation in his own person, and endeavored to content myself with the means of enjoyment placed within my reach. My eyes were never tired of wandering ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... he destines men to sin, as sin? What would they think of the Inadmissible Grace, the Perseverance of the Elect, the Supralapsarian and the Sublapsarian and, finally, of a Deity the author of man's existence, temptation and fall, who deliberately pre-ordains sin and ruin? "Father Cohen" carries out into the regions of the extreme his strictures on the one grand vitalising idea of Al-Islam, "There is no god but God;"[FN336] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... was a track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked there, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw her walking on them at the end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held her pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never looked round, and passed out of my view directly. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... assurance that they would be more faithful. Their very poverty would make them the more liable to money temptation; and the poor, you must remember, although so much more pitiable, were not morally any better than the rich. Then, too—and that was the most important reason why the masses of the people, who were poor, did not send men of their class to represent them—poverty ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... merged in the gray dusk of dreams. There is cruelty, horror, and a sense of the wickedly magnificent in the ensemble. What crimes were committed to merit such atrocious punishment? The boldness and clearness of it all! With perspicacity George Saintsbury wrote of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony: "It is the best example of dream literature that I know—most writers who have tried this style have erred, inasmuch as they have endeavoured to throw a portion of the mystery with which the waking mind ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... with a tin of peaches—opening it with a knife that I found there—and it seemed to me that those peaches were the most delicious thing that I had tasted since I was born. After they were down I went on deck again—to be out of reach of temptation—and staid there resolutely for an hour; getting at this time, and also keeping myself a little quiet, by counting six thousand slowly—and it did seem to me as though I never should get to the end! Then I had another of those delicious tins; and after ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... very confident, that this temptation of the devil is more usual amongst poor creatures than many are aware of, even to overrun their spirits with a scurvy and seared frame of heart, and benumbing of conscience; which frame, he stilly and slyly supplieth with such despair, that though not much guilt attendeth the soul, yet they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... embarrassed by questions that lie beyond it. Were it otherwise the Executive would sink beneath the burden, the channels of justice would be choked, legislation would be obstructed by excess, so that there is a greater temptation to exercise some of the functions of the General Government through the States than to trespass on their rightful sphere. The "absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority" was at the beginning ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... considerable as to be a real object, in a political point of view, to any person engaged in a public line of life, where the acquisition of friends is always an important point. Add to this, the opportunity of distinguishing oneself in a department entirely separate from all others, and the temptation is certainly very great. But I feel two material, and as they now strike me, insuperable objections. First, I think it is not prudent for a person who has already been put forward beyond what many people think his ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... is Balzac to be dismissed as "immoral," for his life was one of singular self-sacrifice in spite of much temptation. His face was strongly sensual, his look and bearing denoted almost savage power; he led a free life in a country which allowed much freedom; and yet his story is almost mystic in its fineness of thought, and in its detachment, which was often that ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... him; it was her alternate moods of yielding and reserve which had awakened his senses. She had been flattered by his admiration, and had sought to call it forth. But, in the beginning, at least, he had struggled against the temptation. He had prayed for help in the sore combat—how often and how earnestly!—but no help had come. Heaven had been deaf to his entreaties. And he had soon realized that struggling in this instance was of ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... parts of a composition and not the whole. It is scarcely possible to doubt that, fine as they may be, the effect they produce is not that of the finest single sonnets, beginning and ending within their own limits. Milton may never have been under any special temptation to write a set of consecutive sonnets; but it is in any case like his habitual submission of all authority to his own judgment that he wrote sonnets and yet defied the tradition of writing them as a continuous series, ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... interfered with the work of the school, and Philip for that reason hated visitors; but it was his duty to be civil and patient. Two inspectors called on two different occasions to examine the scholars. One of them was scarcely sober, and he behaved in a manner so eccentric that the master had a strong temptation to kick him out. However, he at last succeeded in seeing the inspector outside the door peaceably, and soon afterwards the department dispensed with that ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... always been so obedient, could be guilty of such a grievous breach of discipline; but as calling and searching proved of no avail, at last, with a heavy heart, he had to admit that even good little Peppo had yielded to temptation. ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... decide." The news seemed too good to be true; but Peter explained his arrangements, and told me all that was necessary was for me to say I would go. I was going to answer him with a joyful yes, when the thought of Benny came to my mind. I told him the temptation was exceedingly strong, but I was terribly afraid of Dr. Flint's alleged power over my child, and that I could not go and leave him behind. Peter remonstrated earnestly. He said such a good chance might never occur again; that Benny was free, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, thus pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth; give us this day our daily(19) bread; and forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One; for Thine is the power and the glory forever.(20) Three times in the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... offense their children are kept at home. The great evil against which we have to guard is the love of strong drink. When this is offered to an Indian, it seems as if it was not in his nature to resist the temptation. I have known whole congregations of Indians, good Indians, ruined and brought to nothing by the opportunity of obtaining whisky as ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... of pilfering or open robbery by violence are of very rare occurrence. Yet temptations to both are not lacking. Fruittrees on the river-bank, even at some distance from any village, are generally private property, and though they offer a great temptation to passing crews when their fruit is ripe, the rights of the proprietor are usually respected or compensation voluntarily paid. Theft within the house or village is practically unknown. Even before the European governments were established, Malay and Chinese traders occasionally penetrated ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... resolution, and the youth took every precaution against committing what was likely to be a fatal mistake. Although his sleep was broken, and he could have consumed several hours additional with enjoyment, he was never more wide-awake. The temptation was strong to sit down on the ground with his back against a tree, but he foresaw the consequences. The man who yields only for a few minutes to the creeping ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... not increase prices of domestic goods by anything like their full amount, it is none the less true that such prohibitive duties eliminate the possibility of foreign competition, even in time of scarcity; that they form a temptation to monopoly and conspiracies to control domestic prices; that they are much in excess of the difference in cost of production here and abroad, and that they should be reduced to a point ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... says Shakespeare, and Corvin explains this in teasing fashion: "Women pray every day, 'Lead us not into temptation, for see, dear God, if you do so I can't resist it.' '' Even Kant[1] takes feminine weakness as a distinguishing criterion: "In order to understand the whole of ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... at home, and I cannot wait, I have confided in our girl Viney, whom I can trust. She will tell you, when she gives you this, where I have put the money—I do not write it, lest the letter should fall into the wrong hands; there are many to whom it would be a great temptation. I shall return in a few days, and relieve you of the responsibility. Should anything happen to me, write to the Secretary of State at Richmond for instructions what to do with the money. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... believe that unnecessary temptation is now being placed before all parties concerned in examinations. The proper reward for a good examination should be honor, not pounds, shillings, and pence. The mischief done by pecuniary rewards offered in the shape of scholarships and exhibitions at school and University, begins to be recognized ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... said Matty at last, with a little sigh, and she turned away as one who must not any longer contemplate so dazzling a temptation. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... a temptation she was putting before him. It would be so easy to make this a fork in the road from which he and she should take different ways forever, in the end leaving him free, and at little cost to her! But he fought that ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... accomplishment of all good; in such manner that even the Regenerate, without this antecedent, of preventing, exciting, concomitant, and co-operating grace, cannot think that which is good, desire, or practise it, nor resist any temptation to evil; so that all the good works or actions he can conceive, spring from the grace of God: that as to what regards the manner of operation of this grace, it is not irresistible, since it is said of several, they resisted ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... said Patches soothingly. "You see, I thought it would be best to remove the temptation. You don't really want to shoot me, anyway, you know. You only think you do. When you have had time to consider it all, calmly, you'll thank me; because, don't you see, I would make you a lot more trouble dead than I could possibly, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... press, to periodical papers and casual books and pamphlets, for information about passing events and prominent men before sufficient means had been organized for procuring information which should approximate to correctness. In such circumstances, the temptation to invent and embellish was irresistible. "Why," a paragraph-maker of the time is made to say, "if we will write nothing but truth, we must bring you no news; we are bound to bring you such as we can find." Yet it was not lies but truth ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... told to me a few years before, in my New England home, that I could ever become a party in such a transaction, I should have rejected the idea with indignation. But my disappointed and lonely condition rendered me an easy prey to temptation, and I was where public opinion sanctioned such connections. Besides, there were kindly motives mixed up with selfish ones. I pitied the unfortunate father, and I feared his handsome daughter might fall into hands that would not protect her ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... managed, there is less necessity for protection for the press. It must be recollected, however, that this anonymousness (to coin a word) may not only be useful to protect us from any abuse of power, but that at least it takes away that temptation to discuss things in an insufficient manner which arises from personal fear of giving offence. Then, again, there is an advantage in considering arguments without reference to persons. If well-known ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... The temptation was very strong to spend the last bullet upon him, but he could not fail to see the absurdity of the thing; besides which, his gun was seated upon the ground, with the muzzle pointed upward at him. He could reach ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... famous by virtue of the remarkable character of their discoveries, and it began to dawn upon him that there were possibilities in this journey of his which might enable him to become one of the immortals of scientific discovery. So elated was he at the prospect that he could not resist the temptation to communicate his hopes to Dick, who, somewhat matter-of-fact individual though he was, nevertheless heartily sympathised with his friend's ambition, and cheerfully undertook to assist in every way possible, if Earle would but indicate the direction ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... a house of ill-fame, not even out of curiosity, because, as she pointed out, in such a case no man could ever trust himself. And she implored him to live a temperate life, and turn to God in prayer whenever temptation assaulted him. ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... pursuits; still the Sioux could not give up the habit of travelling these favourite trails. The ponies often came in from the Republican, not now laden with furs and robes, but each bearing a Sioux warrior. The overland coaches offered a great temptation to the cupidity of the Sioux, and they were not slow to avail themselves of any opportunity to attack them. The coaches carried the mails and much treasure, and if the savages could now and then succeed in capturing one, they got money, jewels, scalps, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... lay hold of and talk about, than have them invent something you have never done! They will give you no credit for virtue or honesty in this world, Maryllia, unless you grow ugly and deformed. Then perhaps they will admit you may be good, and they will add—'She has no temptation to be otherwise.'" ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... rooms, round the four sides of a small court, spacious, lofty, with frescoed ceilings and rich hangings, and abundantly furnished with arm-chairs, sofas, marble tables, and great looking-glasses. Not that these last are a great temptation, but in our wandering life I wished to be perfectly comfortable myself, and to make my family so, for just this summer, and so I have taken the lower piano, the price being only fifty dollars per ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... now defenceless condition of a competitor once formidable and always odious; and gradually, but not easily, not without reluctance and shame and secret pangs of compunction, she would suffer the temptation,—one, it must be confessed, of no common force and aided by pleas of public utility not a little plausible,—to become victorious over her first thoughts, her better feelings, her more virtuous resolves. For the honor of human nature, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... all will, our blessed treasure; for when you leave us, son of our hearts, what temptation will we have to stay afther you? Your voice, achora, will be in our ears, and your sweet looks in our eyes— but that is all that will be left of you—and your father and I will never have a day's happiness ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... discreet neighboring pastors preached for me. Commonly, every church should do its own spiritual harvesting—just as much as every pair of young lovers should do their own love-making, and wise parents their own family training. Looking outside is a temptation to shirk responsibility. If a preacher can preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ faithfully, and the Lord God is with him, why rob him of the joy of the harvest by sending away for ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... of the music-kite—the car of the music-balloon rather, having thus descended near enough to the earth to be a temptation to some of the walkers afoot, they must catch at it! The moment the last-mentioned song was ended, almost before its death-note had left the lips of the singer, one of the friends' friends was on his feet. Without a word of apology, without the shadow of a request ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... corner of the Empire as Borneo, ten thousand miles from the lights of the restaurants in Piccadilly, the men religiously observe the English ritual of dressing for dinner, for when the mercury climbs to 110, though the temptation is to go about in pajamas, one's drenched body and drooping spirits need to be bolstered up with a stiff shirt and a white mess jacket. That the stiffest shirt-front is wilted in an hour makes no difference: it reminds them that they are still Englishmen. Nor, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson employed all his powers of temptation. Grey, who knew not where to turn for a pistole, and was ready for any undertaking, however desperate, lent his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from retreat. To the first invitations which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the capital with bricks. In a little time he acquires some money, and, like several others in the city whose yearly gain exceeds what is requisite for the support of themselves and families, lays it out on interest. Ten and eight per cent. being given for money, proved a great temptation, and induced many, who were averse from the trouble of settling plantations, or were unable to bestow that attention to them which they demanded, to take this method of increasing their fortune. If the moneylender ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... whirled him around and on high; and in that maddening paroxysm, it was, perhaps, but the balance of a feather, in the conflicting elements of revenge and reason, which withheld Maltravers from hurling the criminal from the fearful height on which they stood. The temptation passed—Cesarini leaned safe, unharmed, but half senseless with mingled rage ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was not coming," she said. "I suppose the temptation to wear that gorgeous raiment was too much ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... peculiar a proposition that I am not disposed to weary you with further argument. You will form your own opinion of its value. My friend has adopted this way of saying a great deal to you—and very eloquently—on the score of youth, temptation, and the like. I might point out, however, that the offence with which the prisoner is charged is one of the most serious known to our law; and there are certain features in this case, such as the suspicion ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
