Tempted Quotes
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I have precious little sympathy for the selfish propriety of civilized man, and if a war of races should occur between the wild beasts and Lord Man, I would be tempted to sympathise with the bears.
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More Tempted Quotes
We live in a highly competitive society, each of us trying to outdo the other in wealth, in popularity or social prestige, in dress, in scholastic grades or golf scores. [...] One is often tempted to say that conflict, rather than cooperation, is the great governing principle of human life.
s. i. hayakawa— p. 14 (The Pooling of Knowledge)
Who holds a sword is tempted, who has youth must play, he who does not fear death on earth does not fear God.
Nikos Kazantzakis— Odysseus, Book VIII, line 560
We use purpose-built technology and work with child safety organisations to find, remove and report it, because we never want this material to appear in our search results. We are working with experts on effective ways to deter anyone tempted to look for this sickening material.
— A Company Spokesman, quoted on BBC News, "Microsoft's Bing introduces child abuse search pop-ups", July 27, 2013.
I could never begin a poem: 'When I am dead' In case it tempted Fate, and Fate gave way.
Roger McGough— 1982 'When I Am Dead'.
You cannot judge a man's life by the success of a moment, by the victory of an hour, or even by the results of a year. You must view his life as a whole. You must stand where you can see the man as he treads the entire path that leads from the cradle to the grave — now crossing the plain, now climbing the steeps, now passing through pleasant fields, now wending his way with difficulty between rugged rocks — tempted, tried, tested, triumphant.
william jennings bryan— "The Law and the Gospel".
Of the two classes of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. ... True worth does not exult in the faults and deficiencies of others; as true refinement turns away from grossness and deformity, instead of being tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it. ... Real power, real excellence, does not seek for a foil in inferiority; nor fear contamination from coming in contact with that which is coarse and homely.
william hazlitt— "On Vulgarity and Affectation"
When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?"
joseph heller— As quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations (1997) edited by Peter Kemp, p. 303
Let us be clear. Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists - and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.
michael howard— Colin Brown, "Howard seeks to placate 'angry majority'", The Independent, October 7, 1993
— Speech to the Conservative Party conference, October 6, 1993
Journalism is a good place for any writer to start — the retailing of fact is always a useful trade and can it help you learn to appreciate the declarative sentence. A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.
garrison keillor— "Post to the Host" (July 2005)
Have you ever been tempted to start your own business- First read this cautionary tale, especially if you think your ideas come from God.
phil vischer— Publisher's Weekly review of Me, Myself, & Bob, 2006-10-09
The poor must be wisely visited and liberally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime.
robert charles winthrop— Yorktown Oration (1881).
More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress.
william wordsworth— Line 23. (Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey (1798))
It [knowledge] is clearly related to information, which we can now measure; and an economist especially is tempted to regard knowledge as a kind of capital structure, corresponding to information as an income flow. Knowledge, that is to say, is some kind of improbable structure or stock made up essentially of patterns that is, improbable arrangements, and the more improbable the arrangements, we might suppose, the more knowledge there is.
kenneth boulding— p.142 (Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, 1968)
It is almost as hard to define mathematics as it is to define economics, and one is tempted to fall back on the famous old definition attributed to Jacob Viner, “Economics is what economists do,” and say that mathematics is what mathematicians do. A large part of mathematics deals with the formal relations of quantities or numbers.
kenneth boulding— p.97 (Economics As a Science, 1970)
The power of administrative bodies to make finding of fact which may be treated as conclusive, if there is evidence both ways, is a power of enormous consequence. An unscrupulous administrator might be tempted to say "Let me find the facts for the people of my country, and I care little who lays down the general principles."
charles evans hughes— "Important Work of Uncle Sam's Lawyers", American Bar Association Journal (April 1931), p. 238, reprinting an address to the Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C. (February 11, 1931), where the chief justice spoke of the "extraordinary development of administrative agencies of the government and of the lawyer's part in making them work satisfactorily and also in protecting the public against bureaucratic excesses", according to the article's subtitle.
We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.
thomas mann— Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman] (1901). Pt 8, Ch. 2
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
h. l. mencken— Ch. 6, "The New Poetry Movement"
I am tempted to say that a doctorate in AI would be negatively useful, but I am not one to hold someone’s reckless youth against them – just because you acquired a doctorate in AI doesn’t mean you should be permanently disqualified.
eliezer yudkowsky— So You Want To Be A Seed AI Programmer
Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as " in all points tempted like as we are," bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.
— Alexander Maclaren, p. 11. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The difficulty in dealing with a maze or labyrinth lies not so much in navigating the convolutions to find the exit but in not entering the damn thing in the first place. Or, at least not yet again. As a creature of free will, do not be tempted into futility.
— Vera Nazarian, in The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
If it were not for the founder of the school, Charles S. Pierce, who has told us that he ‘learned philosophy out of Kant ,’ one might be tempted to deny any philosophical pedigree to a doctrine that holds not that our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful because our ideas are true, but rather that our ideas are true because our expectations are fulfilled and our actions successful.
— Max Horkheimer, describing the pragmatist view, Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 42
Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He had fasted forty days and forty nights.
Bible (NewTestament)— Matthew 4,1-2
The genocidal quality of the murderous campaigns against Greeks and Assyrians is obvious. Historians who realize that the Young Turks’ population and extermination policies have to be analysed together and understood as an entity are therefore often tempted to speak of a “Christian genocide.” This approach, however, is insofar inadequate as it ignores the Young Turks’ massive violence against non-Christians.
— Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer, Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies - introduction, Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 7 - 14
A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake.
— G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens ch. 10
Suicide only really frightens those who are never tempted by it and never will be, for its darkness only welcomes those who are predestined to it.
Georges Bernanos— Mouchette (1937)
The poor must be wisely visited and liberally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime.
— Yorktown Oration (1881).
You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children , you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god .
— Leonard Cohen, in "Story of Isaac" on Songs from a Room (1969).
