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Temptation   Listen
noun
Temptation  n.  
1.
The act of tempting, or enticing to evil; seduction. "When the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season."
2.
The state of being tempted, or enticed to evil. "Lead us not into temptation."
3.
That which tempts; an inducement; an allurement, especially to something evil. "Dare to be great, without a guilty crown; View it, and lay the bright temptation down."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Temptation" Quotes from Famous Books



... bush." His aunt Margaret, always devoted to plants and to flowers, had, on the back stoop of his grandfather's house, a little grove of orange and lemon trees, in pots. Some of these were usually in fruit or in flower, and the fruit to The Boy was a great temptation. He was very fond of oranges, and it seemed to him that a "home-made" orange, which he had never tasted, must be much better than a grocer's orange; as home-made cake was certainly preferable, even to the wonderful cakes made by the professional Mrs. Milderberger. He watched ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... is by patient, persevering study of the facts. But the facts turn out to be so numerous, so multifarious, that not one life nor one generation but many lives and many generations will assuredly not co-ordinate them sufficiently to bring this aim within probable reach. Hence the incessant temptation, first, to supply by hypothesis what cannot yet be obtained by observation, and, secondly, to bend facts to suit this hypothesis; and, if the framing of such hypotheses be legitimate, the distortion of facts is clearly not legitimate. It seems too long to wait for future ages to complete the task. ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter

... diminution, either in quantity or quality; and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was; and he had not the same temptation to dine at home he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... The temptation is great to dwell upon other educators connected with the great universities: Ira Remsen, and his contributions to chemistry; David Starr Jordan, and his great work on American fishes; Woodrow Wilson, and his contributions to the study of American history; ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... Dr. Sturk with intent to kill him. The women blessed themselves, and turned pale. The men looked queer when they met one another. It was altogether so astounding—Mr. Dangerfield was so rich—so eminent—so moral—so charitable—so above temptation. It had come out that he had committed, some said three, others as many as fifteen secret murders. All the time that the neighbours had looked on his white head in church as the very standard of probity, and all the prudential ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Fraser secretly entertained a certain sympathy for George's sufferings, arising no doubt from a fellow-feeling. It seemed to him that he could understand a man going very far indeed when his object was to win Angela: not that he would have done it himself, but he knew the temptation and what it cost to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that would only be a serious danger if we could not still be a match for them by embarking our own citizens and the aliens resident among us. But in fact by this means we are always a match for them; and, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... it was necessary to pass the parlor, and Julia could not resist the temptation to look in and see "if the old man ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... he came to proclaimed itself as the College of Spiritual Athletics, and in the window of a shop that was evidently affiliated to the college he saw an announcement that moral try-your-strengths, suitable for every kind of ordinary temptation, would be provided on the shortest notice. Some of those that aimed at the more common kinds of temptation were kept in stock, but these consisted chiefly of trials to the temper. On dropping, for example, a penny into a slot, you could have a jet of fine pepper, flour, or ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... of Thackeray, essay is so much mixed up with narrative, and comment with characterization, that they can hardly be thoroughly appreciated in poor editions. The temptation to skip is almost irresistible, when wisdom can be purchased only at the expense of eyesight. We are therefore glad to welcome the commencement of a new edition of his writings, over whose pages the reader can linger at his pleasure, and quietly enjoy subtilties ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... should feel as little bias as possible, to swell or to reduce the amount of their numbers. Were their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule, they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants. Were the rule to decide their share of taxation alone, a contrary temptation would prevail. By extending the rule to both objects, the States will have opposite interests, which will control and balance each other, and produce the requisite impartiality. ...
— The Federalist Papers

... dread flashed into his mind afresh, there swept across Stephen La Mothe one of those sudden storms of temptation which at some time or another beat into every life, even the most sheltered, and surely prove that the curse of primal sin still dwells inherent in our best humanity. "He will drown! Well, let him drown!" and in the instant of the thought, by some instinct ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... money even after that dreadful loss—if he had stabbed a man in a tavern scuffle, or broken into a house, or picked a pocket, or done anything that would send him abroad with an iron ring upon his leg, and rid me of him. Better still, if I could throw temptation in his way, and lure him on to rob me. He should be welcome to what he took, so I brought the law upon him; for he is a traitor, I swear! How, or when, or where, I don't know, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... a visit to Madame Vanira would please Lady Chandos. She asked her husband if he would go to the Cedars with her, and wondered when he declined. The truth was that he feared some chance recognition, some accidental temptation; he dared not go, and Lady Marion looked ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... poor wife pleaded with him to return home, pointing out that there he would be able to lay his case before the British public. This course had attractions for him, but after a night's reflection and prayer, he rejected it as a specious temptation sent ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... one of the most 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

... of a peasant maid who had been captured and brought to Solomon's harem, but who steadily resisted his blandishments and was finally restored to her shepherd lover. The book becomes thus not a triumph of love over lust, but of love over temptation. The story is very pretty; but the objections to it and to the dramatic view of the book are all but insuperable. It must be confessed that, to arrive at such a story at all, a good deal has to be read between the lines, and interpreters usually find what they bring; but the most fatal objection ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... altogether objectionable if one knew it to have been a nice healthy kitten, but my observations of Chinese unsqueamishness about the food they eat leaves an abundance of room for doubt about the nature of its death and its suitableness for human consumption. I therefore resist the temptation to indulge. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... newspapers to poke into what you do nor how you live. You can understand what I mean if you've ever tried living in the West. I used to feel the same way the year I was ranching in Texas. My family sent me out there to put me out of temptation; but I concluded I'd rather drink myself to death on good whiskey at Del's than on the stuff we got on the range, so I pulled my freight and came East again. But while I was there I was a little king. I was just as good as the next man, ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... bring the temptation to Eve instead of Adam, because woman was a weaker, and man a superior being. He brought the temptation to Eve because a woman isn't afraid of the Devil. If he had brought it to Adam, he would ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft

... them; and when all knelt together before retiring to rest, to give humble and hearty thanks for the blessings of the past day—while each heart poured forth its gratitude for the especial mercy that had been granted—his prayed also for power to resist temptation. ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick

... punishment than one who should steal a few halfpence for a mug of beer or wantonly kill his neighbour's dog, since these latter were tempted less. But it is quite the opposite in the administration of justice which is authorized in the world: for the greater is the temptation to sin, the more does it need to be repressed by the fear of a great chastisement. Besides, the greater the calculation evident in the design of an evil-doer, the more will it be found that the wickedness has been deliberate, and the more readily will one decide that it is great and deserving ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... you are paid to mention it,' the blundering old booby could not resist the temptation of trying it again, 'and you must mention it to pay, mention ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... former Times, and which a stupid Age would come easily into, won't go down with us now: As the taste of Vice and Virtue alters, the Devil is forc'd to bait his Hook with new Compositions; the very Thing call'd Temptation is alter'd in its Nature, and that which serv'd to delude our Ancestors, whose gross Conceptions of Things caused them to be manageable with less Art, will not do now; the Case is quite alter'd; in some Things, perhaps, as I hinted above, we come into Crime with ease, and may be led ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... regular hours and regular employment wore away with surprising rapidity. There were, of course, mornings when sea and sky and the freshness of outdoors tempted me and I wondered whether or not I had been foolish to give up my fine and easy life. But these periods of temptation were shorter and less frequent as I became more and more familiar with my duties and with the routine of the bank. I found myself taking a greater interest in the institution and, to my astonishment, I was actually sorry when Saturday came. It seemed odd enough to once more have money in my ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... thought wisely of his temptation. Fate rules them only who are too weak to rule themselves, and the great leash of fate is the power of evil women. It was now to hasten the current of history in ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... whereby to dispute God's | & broght them unto the man to se how commandments and not to depend upon the | he wolde call them: for howsoever the revelation of his will, which was the | man named the living creature, so was original temptation. And the first holy | the name thereof.The man therefore records, which within those brief | gave names unto all cattle, and to the memorials of things which passed before | foule of the heaven, and to everie the flood entered few things as worthy to | beast ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... While the temptation is great to revise the manuscript, so as to make it read more smoothly, it has been decided not to alter a line or letter. Truth will be better served by publishing what is prudent, under the complicated political circumstances of our times, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... world you could ever be happy in. You can't be happy in the half-world, Patricia; you aren't that sort. But you can never come back to us then, Patricia; it doesn't matter what the motive was, what the temptation was, or how great the repentance is—you cannot ever return. That is the law, Patricia; perhaps, it isn't always a just law. We didn't make it, you and I, but it is the law, and we must obey it. Our world merely says that, leaving ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... novel process of thinking. The prison stood high up on Clichy Hill, walled and barred and guarded, like other jails, but within it a fair margin of liberty was allowed the bankrupts, just sufficient to make their fate terrible by temptation. Some good soul had endowed it with a library; newspapers came every day; a cafe was attached to it, where spirituous liquors were prohibited, to the wrath of the dry throats and raging thirsts of the captives; there was a garden behind it, and ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... John Derringham began to grow exasperated, and plunged into temptation, which he did not admit that he ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... of a seaman's life. Days of toil bring nights of drowsiness; and the repose of nature presents a constant temptation to imitate her example. The reaction of excitement destroys the disposition to indulge in the song, the jest, or the tale; and the mind, like the body, is disposed to rest from its labors. Even the murmuring wash of the water, as it rises and falls against ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... humility, with yearning, Christ-like love, and say: 'We are all sinners; we need each other's help, and the Saviour has need of all. We will go hand in hand through joy and sorrow, through toil and temptation, up to the gates of the Celestial city, up to the ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd

... son John David, by his first marriage (with the grand-daughter of the Earl of Kilmarnock, who was executed at the Tower with Lord Lovat), had wisely kept out of temptation amid the peaceful family vineyards at Jerez, from which he returned in 1832 to Wardhouse. But John David's half-brother stayed at home and became Admiral Sir James Alexander Gordon (1782-1869), who as the "last of Nelson's Captains" roused the admiration of Tom Hughes in a ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... Long's efforts and mine, there was a change in the atmosphere of our intercourse. But there was intimacy enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went with them to the opera, to the theatre, and sat through the ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... regard. And long as Joseph did in Egypt live, The record of his life this truth did give. Behold him when in his first master's house, Who placed beneath his care all but his spouse, How nobly he withstood temptation great, How suitable his conduct to his state. Behold him when his mistress tried so hard To tempt him into sin. Did he regard Her strong entreaties or her flowing tears? Those fell like emptiness upon his ears, And these but more impressed his tender mind With wish to better serve his master ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... banjo, if he be of a mechanical turn, is often tempted to exercise his skill by making an instrument for himself; and the temptation is the greater because he can confine himself to the essentials. The excellence of a banjo in respect to power and tone depends mainly upon the rim and the neck, that is, supposing the parchment head to be of proper quality; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... from small beginnings. They yearn from tide flats to the spar buoy in the harbor channel, thence through Hull Gut to the rocky bottoms about the Brewsters. After that the sirens sing to them from every wash of white waves over ledges far out to sea, caution drowns in the temptation of blue water, and they fish no more except it is "down outside." They who dwell on the very rim of this deep sea, at Marblehead or Nahant, at Cohasset or at Duxbury never know the full depth of its lure as do ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... fold the other part up to wind her silk upon. Sophy kept her eye upon the paper that lay under the grate in the greatest anxiety, lest a coal should drop upon it and destroy it, when it seemed almost within her grasp. Louisa was called out of the room, and Sophy, overpowered by the greatness of the temptation, forgot all the good resolutions she had so lately made, and at the risk of setting fire to her sleeve, snatched the paper from among the ashes, and concealed it in her pocket. She then flew to her own room to examine it at her ease. The note ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... 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 a trying half ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... long time since we met," he said. He felt hardly any temptation now to call her Miriam. Indeed it would have seemed altogether in opposition to the common order of things to do so. She was no longer Miriam, but the maternal Dockwrath;—the mother of that long string of dirty ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... against the kingdom of Solomon; and Solomon was not an unbeliever; but the devils believed not, they taught men sorcery, and that which was sent down to the two angels at Babel, Harut, and Marut: yet those who taught no man until they had said, Verily we are a temptation, therefore be not an unbeliever. So men learned from those two a charm by which they might cause division between a man and his wife; but they hurt none thereby, unless by God's permission; and they learned that which would hurt them, and not ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... at Pat, understanding the temptation, and then turned his eyes pityingly toward the man—the stranger, dozing, murmuring strangely in his sleep. Seeing him at rest, and realizing the long hours before daybreak, Stephen finally dropped over upon one elbow, and prepared to ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... detained many years in this country, and are anxious to return home. When, therefore, they find themselves with only two strangers with them—away from your authority, and in possession of a large sum of money—will not the temptation be too strong? They will only have to run down the southern channel, gain the port of Bantam, and they will be safe; having obtained both freedom and wealth. To send, therefore, my friend and me, would be to send us to almost certain death; but ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... they always will go, to lectures, where they fancy they learn something, whether they learn anything or not; and on these occasions, not merely to hear the lecturer, but to be seen by him. To them, however attractive the lecture might have been, the lecturer was more so. He was an irresistible temptation to matrons with marriageable daughters, and wherever he sojourned he was overwhelmed with invitations. It was a contest who should have him to dinner, and in the simplicity of his heart, he ascribed to admiration of his science and ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... the question; for the temptation to pull the cat's tail had proved too strong for the boy. Bowed over his desk in a fit of laughter at the result, he did not see the door behind him open, but Simpkins did. And he saw Mrs. Athelstone, her eyes blazing, spring into the room, ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... Black Sea Treaty, they were ready to recover Bessarabia, and to restore Sebastopol to the rank of a first-class naval fortress. After the Crimean tour he came to England on leave. His time was short, but he managed to pay a flying visit to Gravesend. He also could not resist the temptation of attending the funeral of the Emperor Napoleon in January 1873, and he expressed his opinion of that ill-starred ruler in his usual terse manner—"a kind-hearted, unprincipled man." His youngest brother, to whom he was ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... containing many gold and silver medals, with a most valuable gold snuff box studded with diamonds presented by the Emperor Alexander[16], valued at L1000; all these things were left open entirely to us, without any other person in the room; this I consider very wrong as leading into temptation and I predict they will soon have some plunderer, either Yankee or foreigner; on going away we expressed our surprise at the want of discretion; they said they had only missed one small gold coin. Thence I drove to the Capitol, visited both ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... mechanically to undress, brushed her hair, moved about softly in the uncertain candlelight. And as she did so she became more and more unable to resist the temptation to say "Good-night" to Richie again. Neither brain nor heart was deeply involved in this desire, but some influence, stronger than either, urged her irresistibly toward ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... and sing this Psalm of Him. Can we lift our eyes to any of the hills without seeing His figure upon them? Is there a human ideal, duty or hope, with which Jesus is not inseparably and for ever identified? Is there a human experience—the struggle of the individual heart in temptation, the pity of the multitude, the warfare against the strongholds of wickedness—from which we can imagine Him absent? No; it is impossible for any high outline of morality or religion to break upon the eyes of our race, it is impossible for any field of righteous battle, any floor of suffering ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith

... strange mode of Cornelius's death, my father had made a transition to that of Socrates, and was giving my uncle Toby an abstract of his pleading before his judges;—'twas irresistible:—not the oration of Socrates,—but my father's temptation to it.—He had wrote the Life of Socrates (This book my father would never consent to publish; 'tis in manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in the family, all, or most of which will be printed in due time.) himself the year before he left off trade, which, I ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... contain crimes that now are beyond the reach of our best endeavours, even then, if we consider the circumstances of time and place, and the vast plane of each human existence, these crimes fade out of our life the moment we feel that no temptation, no power on earth, could ever induce us to commit the like again. The world has not forgiven—there is but little that the external sphere will forget or forgive—and their material effects will continue, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... tired, sleep had overcome her. Her dress was slightly discomposed at her feet, revealing a considerable portion of her magnificently formed limbs. I advanced cautiously to her side and saw that she slept soundly. I could not resist the temptation offered me, but gently raised her petticoats. She wore no drawers and all the secrets of her charming person were entirely exposed to my gaze. The sight of her lovely white belly, her naked thighs and her pretty hairy bijou inflamed me in the ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... silently endure, We must conceal the crimes we cannot cure; Nor shall my verse the brighter sex defame, For English beauty will preserve her name; Beyond dispute agreeable and fair, And modester than other nations are; For where the vice prevails, the great temptation Is want of money more than inclination; In general this only is allow'd, They're something noisy, and ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... the whole social state of Germany had altered. The young composer was forced to earn his livelihood in some way, and now became private secretary to Prince Ludwig of Wurtemburg, whose Court was held at Stuttgart. The gay, dissolute life at the Court was full of temptation for our young composer, yet he found considerable time for composition; his opera "Sylvana" was the result, besides several smaller things. During the Stuttgart period, his finances became so low, that on one occasion he ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... dishes are invariably the temptation no less than the downfall of ambitious ignorance. Never let an inexperienced cook attempt a new dish for company, no matter how attractive her description of it may sound. Try it yourself, or ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... all very deplorable, but yet it hardly warrants your very strong language, Fabian. I am sorry that you have discovered her to be 'ignorant, deceitful, and unreliable,' but let us hope that now, when she is placed above temptation, she will reform. Don't take exaggerated views of ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... even of maudlin sentiment went direct to Olive's heart. She clung to him, kissed him, begged his forgiveness, nay, even wept over him. He ceased to rage, and sat in a sullen silence for many minutes. Meanwhile Olive took away every temptation from his sight. Then she ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... Thomar, where the detail is even more curious and Indian-looking, the temptation to look for Indian models is still stronger, owing to the peculiar position which the Order of Christ at Thomar now held, for the knights of that order had for some time possessed complete spiritual jurisdiction over India ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... would prove detrimental to the commercial interests of the nation; and they conceived the advantages proposed to be allowed upon the exportation of such spirits, being so much above the value of their commodity, would lay such a temptation for smuggling and perjury as no law could prevent. They expressed their fears, that, should such a bill pass into a law, the excessive use of spirituous liquors would not only debilitate and enervate the labourers, manufacturers, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... seven times tried is pure From all adulteration; So, through God's word, shall men endure Each trial and temptation: Its worth gleams brighter through the cross, And, purified from human dross, ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never deviated into others' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... tells its own story. Two who loved each other were separated by the fault of the man; the charm of some joro, perhaps, having been the temptation to faithlessness. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... two prahus were in full retreat up stream, evidently from a belief that the steamer would not follow; but in spite of his mishap in running aground, Lieutenant Johnson could not resist the temptation to administer the sternest punishment he could contrive; and with full steam on, he gave chase, firing at the two ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... it would be nothing," said Alice; "less than nothing. I mean to say that the temptation is one so easily resisted that it acts in the other way. Don't say anything more ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... strangest things were wrought in simplest ways, As Gawayne knew full well; and he could see That all the lady said was verity. He took the girdle, held it, fingered it, Then clasped it round his waist to try the fit, Irresolutely dallying with temptation, Till conscience grew too weak for inclination; For at the last he threw one wandering glance Out at the casement, and the merry dance Of sparkling sunbeams on the fields of snow Wrought havoc in his wavering heart; and so, Repeating ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... pages 21, 23 and 24. These glyphs are all necessitated by their different series, and hence can cause no confusions; while it seemed advantageous to have them before the eye. A fair instance of the procedure is shown on page 3-b-1, 3. The temptation was strong to put the usual [Hieroglyph] glyph here as on all the other pages, but the slight variation in the lines left of ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... gales shake them from out the home wall, these little hairy scales ride afar, and those that are so fortunate as to strike into soft, moist soil at the end of the journey, germinate. Because this flower is so rarely beautiful that few can resist the temptation of picking it, it is becoming sadly ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... universe of the Not-Self. Seclusion will help him, until he is strong enough to close himself against the outer stimuli or allurements. The contemplative orders in the Roman Catholic Church offer a good environment for this path. They put the outer world away, as far away as possible. It is a snare, a temptation, a hindrance. Always turning away from the world, the Yogi must fix his thought, his attention, upon the Self. Hence for those who walk along this road, what are called the Siddhis are direct obstacles, and ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... and anxious to think about Pat, so he did not see or hear the girl in the orange scarf steal up to him and offer a dainty piece of meat, as he sat patiently waiting behind. Alas! for dogs' nature, the temptation was too great! He followed the decoy for a few yards and was then allowed to seize the bait. In a moment a black shawl was flung over the silky head, and the dog was snatched up and carried round the corner and across ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis

... Turks, had already driven Ferdinand to the inglorious expedient of recognizing, by an annual tribute, the Porte's supremacy over Transylvania; a shameful confession of weakness, and a still more dangerous temptation to the turbulent nobility, when they fancied they had any reason to complain of their master. Not without conditions had the Hungarians submitted to the House of Austria. They asserted the elective freedom of their crown, and boldly contended for all those prerogatives of their order which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Mr. Bolton," ran the note. "Your methods of tracing and picketing my headquarters are so crude as to be almost laughable. This base has served its purpose and we were ready to abandon it in any event, but I couldn't resist the temptation to let you almost nab us. The three men whom you will find here are agents who failed in their duty. If you are interested in learning the method of their execution, you might take to heart the words of your colleague, Dr. Bird: 'The clue lies ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... polling places, which rendered it impossible to ascertain the progress of the different candidates till the close of the poll, were provisions having an inevitable and most salutary effect in diminishing alike the temptation to bribe on the part of the candidate, and the opportunity of enhancing the value of his vote by the elector. The vast increase of newspapers, by diffusing political education and stimulating political discussion, has ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... upon him the great temptation that was to torment him for many days. In the presence of these powerful and repulsive men, who were the princes of anarchy, he had almost forgotten the frail and fanciful figure of the poet Gregory, the mere aesthete of anarchism. He even thought ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... come in to luncheon now?" Richard said, wisdom whipping up good resolutions once more, and bidding him check the gladness that gained on him at thought of that approaching meeting. Oh yes! he would be discreet, he would erect barriers, he would flee temptation. Knott's presence offered a finely rugged barrier, surely. Therefore, he repeated, "Come in now. My mother will be delighted to see you, and we can have a look round ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the White Sulphur!" repeated Mrs. Lancaster in a tone of surprise. Then she laughed. "How stupid I am!" she said. "Of course I might have known that the temptation to break the pledge of total abstinence from flirtation would be too great in that paradise of flirtation. Besides, Mr. Brent's yacht is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... the soul, and the purity of his dear wife and daughter a thousandfold more valuable than his precious stones, or silver and gold wares? Are not the dangers of temptation and indiscretions, on the part of the priest, more formidable and irresistible in the second than in ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... had to come back," Lois laughingly replied. "Your company is so attractive that I could not resist the temptation of bringing another to enjoy it. This is Mr. Jasper Randall, Captain Peterson. He has come to see ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... sat down again and studied the fire. The little note of sympathy in her voice was a strong temptation to him to make a clean breast of it all; to tell her there and then how much he loved her; what his hopes were, and how utterly in the dark he was as to any definite plans in life. The thought made ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... should go without his beer in public places, and content himself with swearing at the narrow-mindedness of the majority; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back-doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against drink. I have said: "There is no harm in it, taken moderately;" and yet my own demand for beer helped directly to send those ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... riches, pleasure, all manner of enjoyment; on the other, pitiless creditors, ruin, misery, and contempt. The tempter, moreover, offered to initiate his listener in his infallible method of getting rich. In his frame of mind Olivier yielded to the temptation, with the full determination, if not to get money by cheating at cards, at any rate to learn the method which might serve as a means of self-defence should he not think proper to use it for attack—such was the final argument suggested by the human ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... faithful queen returns to thee. In word or deed, in look or mind Her heart from thee has ne'er declined. By force the giant bore away From thy lone cot his helpless prey; And in his bowers securely kept She still has longed for thee and wept. With soft temptation, bribe and threat, He bade the dame her love forget: But, nobly faithful to her lord, Her soul the giant's suit abhorred. Receive, O King, thy queen again, Pure, ever pure from ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... outlet for the expression of artistic and social gifts which would have been denied them in domestic life. At the same time the degrading character of the life led by many geisha cannot be doubted. Apart from every other consideration the temptation to drink is great. The opening of new avenues to feminine ability, the enlarged opportunities of education and self-respect and the increasing opening for women on the stage—from which women have been excluded hitherto—must ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... after, when night drew on, he sent him the cup with so many talents. Harpalus, it seems, was a person of singular skill to discern a man's covetousness by the air of his countenance, and the look and movement of his eyes. For Demosthenes could not resist the temptation, but admitting the present, like an armed garrison, into the citadel of his house, he surrendered himself up to the interest of Harpalus. The next day he came into the assembly with his neck swathed about with wool ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... show, till the Abbey was nearly empty, while he tried to work out the perplexing question whether all this pomp and splendour were truly for the glory of God, or whether it were a delusion for the temptation of men's souls. It was a debate on which his old and his new guides seemed to him at issue, and he was drawn in both directions—now by the beauty, order, and deep symbolism of the Catholic ritual, now by the spirituality and earnestness of the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... support; she had even feared the contrary. And that night when she put the child to bed - "Now, my dear, ye see!" she said, "I told you what your faither would think of it, if he heard ye had fallen into this dreidful sin; and let you and me pray to God that ye may be keepit from the like temptation or strengthened ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the revolver and twirled the cylinder idly for a few moments. "It was unlucky for Manderson that Marlowe left his pistol and cartridges about so carelessly," he remarked at length, as he put it back in the case. "It was throwing temptation in somebody's ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... to crawl out to Kingston Heights. As it at last neared its terminus, a strong temptation seized the boy Cyrus. He had been on a purposeless errand to this place once that day. The corner of West and Dwight streets lay more than half a mile from the end of the car route, and it was an almost untenanted district. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... 19th century. A continuation of the History, embracing the period from 1815 to 1852, which was completed in four volumes in 1856, did not meet with the same success as the earlier work. The period being so near as to be almost contemporary, there was a stronger temptation, which he seems to have found it impossible to resist, to yield to political prejudice, while the materials necessary for a clear knowledge of the influences shaping European affairs were not as yet accessible. The book is now almost ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... entered within the pit of the theatre, but that forthwith, by the virtue and occult property of it, on a sudden all that were there, both players and spectators, did fall into such an exorbitant temptation of lust, that there was not angel, man, devil, nor deviless upon the place who would not then have bricollitched it with all their heart and soul. The prompter forsook his copy, he who played Michael's part came down to rights, the devils issued out of hell and carried along ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... longer will I rank myself with such. That young man, Ralph Willoby, had pleaded with me in a way few could have resisted, but the trouble was, I was in the hands of a man who had been my evil genius for years, and no matter how firm was my resolve to get away from temptation, this tyrant would manage to put the poison into my hands. Of course I thought him a friend,—that was what he had always pretended to be,—but through the strange interference of this little girl,"—laying his hand on Dorothy,—"I have seen the light; the scales ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... eyes, and the growing man lapsed swiftly into the boy again. He gave another quick dig, the earth gave up two more squirming treasures, and with a joyful gasp he stood straight again—his eyes roving as though to search all creation for help against the temptation that now was his. His mother had her face uplifted toward the top of the spur; and following her gaze, he saw a tall mountaineer slouching down the path. Quickly he crouched behind the fence, and the aged look came back into his face. He did not approve ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... courage of resistance.—This is the chief form courage should take in the young. They are surrounded on every side by strong temptations—temptations addressed to their lower nature, to vanity, to indolence, to scepticism, to impurity, to drunkenness. There is many a young man beset by temptation who has in reality to fight far harder if he will maintain his integrity than any soldier belonging to an army making its way through an enemy's country. He does not know when an ambush may be sprung upon him, or from what side the attack may come. In an old tower on the Continent they show ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... Milly about her than to go through the agonies of a succession of pert London girls. Yet something in Milly's eagerness to go, as well as the girl's fresh, innocent, country air, troubled her with a vague sense of anxiety. Was not London said to be a place of temptation for inexperienced country girls? Could she keep Milly safe and innocent if she took her away ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... return. Said I would take nothing with me but medicines, and a little provision, and go in formâ pauperis, as a dervish or doctor. All the Ghadamsee people present approved this way of going, and admired its wisdom, as removing all temptation to attack me, or to steal anything from me when I had nothing to steal. But the Touarick could not come up to the scratch, and was frightened to take upon himself the responsibility, observing, "You are a Christian; the people of Timbuctoo ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... satisfied after he'd had me serve him a dinner cooked by Jules and then had a chat with Katie through the wire cage would have groused at Paradise. For she was pretty, was Katie, and getting prettier every day. I spoke to the boss about it. I said it was putting temptation in the girl's way to set her up there right in the public eye, as it were. And he told me to hop it. So ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... temptation was strong, and she was really very tired. "Maybe it's just because I want to play the game out, too. It's only two ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... all his bad luck he comes here and sees that everybody is getting a big roll. He thinks of that white-faced wife of his dragging herself round among the kids and dying by inches for lack of what money can buy her. I tell you I don't blame him. It's the fellows putting the temptation up to him that ought to ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... elder man. 'He who looks on a woman with desire commits adultery in his heart, and adulterers shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.' 'What then should we sinners doe' asked the young man. 'Knowest thou not,' replied the elder, 'the word of the Lord? If thy right eye leadeth thee into temptation, pluck it out and cast it from thee; if thy right hand leadeth thee into temptation, cut it off and cast it from thee. What ye must do is to kill the flesh. Ye must become like unto the disembodied angels, and that may be attained ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... wearisome to be under the necessity, or at least the constant temptation, of attacking Socinianism, in reviewing a work professedly written against Methodism. Surely such a work ought to treat of those points of doctrine and practice, which are peculiar to Methodism. But to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... need much attention, too. If they had more, there would be less need to work for women. If the heart is pure, no temptation outside can have the power to overcome. If every man were in that condition, there would be no temptation for girls. Let all work together, men and women, nor one think or claim to be ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... contributed immeasurably to the popularization of art and to the familiarization of the public with the work of individual painters and sculptors, have yet, in many ways, been a demoralizing influence in their insidious temptation to produce pictures or plastic art calculated to arrest immediate attention, thus putting a premium on the spectacular, the sensational, on that which makes the most immediate and direct appeal to the senses. The work becomes fairly a personal document wrought with perhaps an almost amazing ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... for a hundred years with Shem. Shem was for fifty years contemporary with Jacob, who probably saw Jochebed, Moses's mother. Thus, Moses might by oral tradition have obtained the history of Abraham, and even of the Deluge, at third hand; and that of the Temptation and ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... to be maintainable by law in Massachusetts, there was a particular temptation to Negroes for taking Indian wives, the children of Indian women being acknowledged to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave it without again exposing the upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This presented (or would present when McDowell and Sumner should be gone) a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the Commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... very much exasperated and glad to get out of the reach of temptation, leaving my uncles busily superintending the fitting of the bands, and helping where they could do anything to start a man on again with his work. And all the time they seemed to make very light of the trouble, caring for nothing but ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... fellow-creatures, and which coexists at the same time with horror! Septimius levelled his weapon, and drew it up again; he marked a mounted officer, who seemed to be in chief command, whom he knew that he could kill. But no! he had really no such purpose. Only it was such a temptation. And in a moment the horse would leap, the officer would fall and lie there in the dust of the road, bleeding, gasping, breathing ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... small slate and pencil for Jan at the village shop, and these were now the child's favorite toys. He would sit quiet for any length of time with them. Even the sandy kitten was neglected, or got a rap on its nose with the slate- pencil, when to toy with the moving point had been too great a temptation to be resisted. For a while Jan's taste for wielding the pencil was solely devoted to furthering his learning to read. He drew letters only till the day that the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... for a time his wife found pleasure in showing her friends all her magnificence; but again and again she wondered what could be the reason why she was not to visit the room at the end of the long gallery. At last her curiosity became such that she could not resist the temptation to take just one peep within the forbidden door. When she reached the door she stopped for a few moments to think of her husband's warning, that he would not fail to keep his word should she disobey him. But she was so very curious to ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall

... he not for years been a fire-tender down in the Rhineland? He was the only man in the village who, after serving his time in the army, had not returned home to till the soil in the sweat of his brow, but had remained down there, where the world puts forth its temptation and the saints are only to be found in the cathedrals, not to be met upon the highways. It was said that people had to toil in the factories—very likely, but certainly not by far so hard as up here, where often in May the frost killed the budding grain and potatoes ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... hate thee, because thy beams recall to me what I was and how I fell. The matchless King of Heaven deserved no such return from me. His service was easy. Had I only been created a lower Power!—But even then, might not some higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never bridge ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... look he dared not raise his eyes again. The sweetness of her young voice thrilled and troubled him. But for his promise to Uchida he would have fled at once, as from temptation. Ume-ko, seeing his embarrassment, withdrew, but not until she had made an imperious gesture to old Mata, commanding her to serve ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... the breath of the lute, I am the mind of man, Gold's glitter, the light of the diamond and the sea-pearl's lustre wan. I am both good and evil, the deed and the deed's intent—Temptation, victim, sinner, crime, ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... distinguished. But the superiority for which they are the most remarkable is, the perfect honesty which characterized all their dealings with us. During the two hours that the men were on board, and for four or five hours that we were subsequently among them on shore (on both which occasions the temptation to steal from us was perhaps stronger than we can well imagine, and the opportunity of doing so by no means wanting), not a single instance occurred, to my knowledge, of their pilfering the most trifling article. It is pleasing to record a fact no less singular in itself than honourable ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... The temptation to see Clay again was strong in Audrey. But suddenly she knew that she did not want to see them together, in the intimacy of their home. She did not want to sit between them at dinner, and then go away, leaving them there together. And ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... 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

... often wishes, yet, that it had, although he is, and has been for years, a "platform star;" "the eloquent Southern orator, moralist and humorist"—yes, that's the self-same man. He's booked for the Y. M. C. A. lecture course in your own town this season. His lecture, entitled "Temptation and How to Conquer It," is said to be "a wonderful alternation of humorous and pathetic anecdotes, illustrative, instructive and pat." I have his circular. His wife travels with him. They generally put up at hotels; tried ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... morning, indeed, he had intended to quit a town that offers but little temptation to the traveller; but he tarried day after day, until Lucille herself accompanied her mother, to assure him of ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... brood of the goosander or red merganser, the young not yet able to fly, were the occasion of some spirited rowing. But with two pairs of oars in a trim light skiff, it was impossible to come up with them. Yet we could not resist the temptation to give them a chase every day when we first came on the lake. It needed a good long pull to sober us down so ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... vigilant, and I once got close 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... profit; he had even gone further and promised to pass it on to Stoddard, who was in the market to protect his holdings. At twenty-four, which was where it was selling, Rimrock would clean up a tidy sum; and every cent of that absolute velvet would come out of Stoddard's pocket. It was a great temptation, but as Rimrock sobered he remembered that it was a fight to a finish. He had set out to ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... also the significance of the temptation in the wilderness. The temptations were all, you will recall, in connection with the material, the physical, and the things that pertain thereto. Do so and so, said the physical: follow after me, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... wee better, ye wad say! But little ye ken the temptation o' ane 'at has but ae solitary wapon, to mak use o' that same! An' the gift ye hae ye're no to despise; ye maun turn ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... it who has put in our prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil'? Here I live in temptation: I am always thrown into evil. If I were not—" Her voice was very quiet, and had a strange pathetic note in it. It ceased, and ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to the house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to this man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl's behalf. He could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... the public solemnization of our marriage was at length appointed. In fact, the plan for the future that appeared to me most promising was to proffer my services to some foreign court, and that of Russia held out to me the greatest temptation. I was therefore anxious, as soon as possible, to conclude the rite of a second or public nuptials, and I purposed leaving the country within a week afterwards. My little lawyer assured me that my suit would go on quite as well in my absence, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... LETTER ALPHA}) With regard to the first-mentioned point it will be well, for the sake of clearness, to adopt Palmieri's distinction between physical and moral capacity.(167) Man sins whenever he transgresses the law or yields to temptation. This would be impossible if he were physically unable to keep the whole law and resist temptation. Hence he must be physically able to do that which he is obliged to do under pain of sin, though in this or that individual instance the difficulties may be insuperable without the aid of ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... of thought and language, a clear eye for scenery and character, and grace of poetic conception of a book, without being willing to say that it gives proof of genius. For genius is the shaping faculty, the power of using material in the best way, and may not work itself clear of the besetting temptation of personal gifts and of circumstances in a first or even second work. It is something capable of education and accomplishment, and the patience with which it submits itself to this needful schooling and self-abnegation is one of the surest tests of its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... the great privileges of my life to have been associated with him. The one thing in the book written by James H. Blount which aroused my ire was his characterization of Colonel Denby as a hypocrite. No falser, meaner, more utterly contemptible statement was ever made, and when I read it the temptation rose hot within me to make public Blount's personal Philippine record, but after the first heat of anger had passed I remembered what the good old Colonel would have wished me to do in such a case, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... for this purpose. Sponge and shaving brush froze stiff as matters of habit. To secure fuel provided constant occupation and frequent stumbling-blocks. On our arrival most rigid orders had been issued not to burn our neighbours' fences and I am able to say that the fences survived our stay. Temptation grew, nevertheless, in orchards and rows of small pollards (usually of ash), which formed the hedges in this part of France, not to mention a wood at the lower end of the village. That ancient trick of covering tree stumps with earth needed little learning. Each ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... springs, yield only a poor produce of vegetables or dourah. They would literally die of starvation were they not able to have access to the banks of the Nile for provisions. On the other hand, it is a great temptation to them to fall unawares on villages or isolated habitations on the outskirts of the fertile lands, and to carry off cattle, grain, and male and female slaves; they would almost always have time to reach the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... began constructing the raft near the creek bank proper, where the water was backed into the field. He dragged the rails through the water, sometimes lying down and swimming, at other times diving under the water. Alfred could not resist the temptation to undress and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... in her hatred Francoise de Foix, the king's mistress, at whom Bourbon frequently cast looks of pity which the furiously jealous Louise interpreted as glances of love. As a matter of fact, Bourbon, being strictly virtuous, was out of reach of temptation by the beauties of the court, and there ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... relish with which he tells the story how certain Pavian students exhumed the body of an "elegans scortum," or lovely dame of ill repute, the favorite of a monk of the order of St. Anthony, who does not seem to have resisted temptation so well as the founder of his order. We have always ranked the physician Rabelais among the early reformers, but I do not know that Vesalius has ever been thanked for his hit at the morals of the religious orders, or for turning to the good of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... entertained opinions opposed to true religion. That man, soon after the Creation, became acquainted with and yielded to the doctrine of devils, scarcely admits of doubt. Those who conversed with our first parents must have learned from them the circumstances connected with the temptation, fall, and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It is not unreasonable, then, to suppose that the serpent was looked upon at an early period as something more than an ordinary earthly reptile. One can imagine Adam and Eve, when wandering in perplexity and fear, after their first ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... Fortified by both he could redeem his luggage, change to clothing more suitable for daylight traveling, pawn his valuables, and enter into negotiations with the steamship company for permission to exchange his passage, with a sum to boot, for transportation on another liner. A most feasible project! A temptation all ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... I had gone to a little distance, leaving Peter watching a hole. Presently I heard a squeak, and on turning round I saw the ferret dead, and Peter standing over it, looking exceedingly ashamed at what he had done, and perfectly conscious that he had disobeyed orders. The temptation, however, was too great for him to resist. Peter at last got into bad company, for he suffered himself to be enticed by the ostlers and others into the taps at Hampton Court, and they indulged him in his fondness for killing vermin and cats. He was a dog of extraordinary sense. I once gave him ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... felt the double insult, to her worldly honour, to her womanhood. The man had not even made pretence of loving her; and this, whilst it embittered her disappointment, strengthened her to cast from her mind the baser temptation. Marriage she would have accepted, though doubtless with becoming hesitancy; the offer could not have been made without one word of tenderness (for Cyrus Redgrave was another than Felix Dymes), and she had ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... cannot bear the slightest struggle; I am weakened like a man whose vital spark is gone, whose soul has left him. If it were not for the grief I should cause my mother, I would have flung myself before now into the sea; I have not returned to the rocks at Croisic since the day that temptation became almost irresistible. Do not speak of this ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... thursday however, a passing gleam of heavenly light irradiates the solemn gloom in which she is enveloped: for on this day Jesus Christ, having loved his own even unto the end, instituted the holy sacrament, the staff of our pilgrimage, our solace in affliction, our strength in temptation, the source of all virtue, and the pledge of everlasting life. Accordingly the liturgy of holy-thursday bears the impress both of sorrow and of gladness: it is not unlike a fitful day of April in ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... so close to Washington that it was certain to be destroyed and swept of every slave, as belonging to a rebel. But the die was cast; he forsook everything for principle and the stern duty it entailed. Then came that final temptation which opened out before him a vista of power and importance greater than that which any man since Washington had held in America. General Long's book proves beyond all further doubt that he was offered the post of commander-in-chief of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... annual sacrifice by casting into the lake the most precious thing ye possess. But even that is not sufficient; ye must make sacrifices that are still more difficult, and cost ye more than that. Ye must steadfastly resist every temptation to do evil, to injure an enemy, to rob, defraud, to utter untruths, to do anything which ye know to be wrong. And ye must do this, not only at stated times set apart for worship, but ye must do it always, whenever the impulse to do evil comes. So shall ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood



Words linked to "Temptation" :   come-on, leading astray, lure, enticement, blandishment, forbidden fruit, leading off, wheedling, sweetener, hook, tempt, allurement, influence, desire, seduction, solicitation



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