The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
I can resist anything but temptation.
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.
Down in the water, Octavian yelled, “Get me out of here! I’ll kill you!†“Tempting,†Percy called down.
Equations are just the boring part of mathematics. I attempt to see things in terms of geometry.
And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings.
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.