Salafists are fundamentalists who dedicate their lives to religious preaching, converting non-believers and defending the strict moral codes of Islamic law. Salafists are generally poor, sometimes impoverished, choosing the purity of poverty over the...
There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘w...
Probably the biggest temptation that young writers face is to be entertaining, to show your bag of tricks and do a bit of tap dancing. I read a lot of things, and I keep seeing this brocade of voice where someone is trying to be too pally with you or...
I was born too late to have any temptation with communism, or at least Soviet-type communism. Travelling in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, you clearly don't want to defend a system that would have empty shops and a totalitarian regime and in...
Anyone who is interested in the psychology of children will have observed that whereas one child will resist temptation or seduction, another will easily yield to it. There are children who will hardly oppose any resistance to the invitation of an un...
Whether something is old-fashioned or not doesn't resolve the question of whether it's true or not. I can see the temptation of simply thinking, 'Well, there's a cultural mainstream which flows neatly in one direction. You just align with it'. And th...
No matter how many sins you make or how slow you travel back toward God's valley, you are still way ahead of a person who never made a mistake and doesn't know what it is like to climb out of a pit of shame and rise above their temptations.
You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the 'best' people, the 'right' food, the 'important' books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still...
We must learn by experience to avoid either trains of thought or social situations which FOR US (not necessarily for everyone) lead to temptations. Like motoring—don’t wait till the last moment before you put on the brakes but put them on, gently...
The last word of the Northmen before their entry in the larger world of Southern culture, their last independent guess at the secret of the Universe, is given in the Twilight of the Gods. As far as it goes, and as a working theory, it is absolutely i...
'It's okay. I understand that you're tempted and know you shouldn't grab the apple, and when you did you wanted to drop it. But I'm not good at resisting temptation. I'd rather eat the fucking thing, and enjoy it, even if I end up in hell.'
It lent a Man a certain peace of mind... to ride through threats and terrors unhearing: it even lent a man a certain real protection, for he could not hear temptation and bad advice to be swayed by it, but it was no protection at all when power reach...
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, no...
We should accept indiscriminately all His dispensations, whether obscurity or illumination, fruitfulness or barrenness, weakness or strength, sweetness or bitterness, temptations, distractions, pain, weariness, or doubtings; and none of all these sho...
To stand by yourself -- that was also part of dignity. That way, a person could get through a public flaying with dignity. Galileo. Luther. Even somebody who admitted his guilt and resisted the temptation to deny it. Something politicians couldn't do...
Y tú no buscas nada de eso que dijiste, esas cosas vacías que todas quieren, tú lo que en verdad buscas es un amor diferente, un amor que te consuma, un amor trascendental, que dure por toda la eternidad. Un amor que solo yo te puedo dar.
Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than ...
To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet. For as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all. His words reach where others...
Are we talking hell hounds and flames here?" Des asked, pacing at the end of our beds. I repeated the question and gave a heaving sigh of relief when Jameson said I had the wrong idea. "He's going to 'lead us into temptation.'" "That doesn't sound so...
People will always prefer black-and-white over shades of grey, and so there will always be the temptation to hold overly-simplified beliefs and to hold them with excessive confidence
I don't know how often opportunity knocks, but temptations to make foul decisions bang on my door all day long. And smelly decisions make for smelly problems later on. A few little decisions, good or bad, can make a big difference in a life. Better t...
