Temptation

Famous quotes containing the word temptation:

    If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men’s failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal’s natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?
    William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)

    My temptation is quiet.
    Here at life’s end
    Neither loose imagination,
    Nor the mill of the mind
    Consuming its rag and bone,
    Can make the truth known.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    We can all be good when we have no temptation or provocation to the contrary.
    Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)