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Tempt   /tɛmpt/   Listen
Tempt

verb
(past & past part. tempted; pres. part. tempting)
1.
Dispose or incline or entice to.  Synonym: allure.
2.
Provoke someone to do something through (often false or exaggerated) promises or persuasion.  Synonyms: entice, lure.
3.
Give rise to a desire by being attractive or inviting.  Synonym: invite.
4.
Induce into action by using one's charm.  Synonyms: charm, influence.
5.
Try to seduce.
6.
Try presumptuously.



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"Tempt" Quotes from Famous Books



... His aim is to tempt Black's centre pawn away and to make his QB4 and K4 accessible for his own forces. Black might be justified in taking the pawn, if he really could hold the pawn thus gained. We shall show later on that this is not so, and that White can win it back easily and advantageously. ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker

... to tempt him with a prospect of success, either by leading him to believe the blockading force was smaller than it was, or by removing it to such a distance as would induce him to attempt to evade it, or both. A leading ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... action has blotted out the bad and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance and to ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... malignant sprite who had prevented any favour being of use to him. In the general exhaustion produced by the wars of Louis XIV., a Scotchman named James Law began the great system of hollow speculation which has continued ever since to tempt people to their ruin. He tried raising sums of money on national credit, and also devised a company who were to lend money to found a great settlement on the Mississippi, the returns from which were to be enormous. Every one speculated in shares, and the wildest ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not tempt me to go abroad at this time. In your estimation I am not even a woman,—only a girl, and yet I have enough girlhood to wish to take my little part in the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... bush on the ridge just back of the cabin, his rifle across his knees. He hoped that his mention of three other men would discourage those two from the attempt to revenge themselves, much as a lone woman would tempt them. But he was not going to ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... "If anybody would tempt me from home, you would; but, just now, from home I must not, will not go. I feel greatly better at present than I did three weeks ago. For a month or six weeks about the equinox (autumnal or vernal) is a period of the year ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... anything just to show you can. Don't let your versatility tempt you into following a number of lines of work for the purpose of demonstrating your ability. Versatility can be the greatest handicap of all; it tempts you to neglect intensive study, to flit, to become a "jack of all ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... such beautiful silk tights, one leg striped and the other leg covered with spangles; and, besides, he has a devil to bring a box of jewels to tempt Marguerite. ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... ponderous dinner, very much like the banquet of new-year's-day, and where the bailiff drank freely, after his wont, and grew somewhat uproarious towards tea-time, though Mr. Whitelaw's selections of port and sherry were not of a kind to tempt a connoisseur. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... wildly, "aye, to Blaen, belike—to silken wantonings and to—death! Tempt me not, O witch—aye, witch that weaveth spells of her beauty—tempt me not I say, lest I slay thee to mine own defence, for I know thee beyond all women fair, yet would I slay thee first—" But, groaning, Beltane cast aside his sword and covered burning eyes with burning palms, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... did not exceed the freezing-point, the vapours of the atmosphere congealed upon the walls, and the air remained dry and tolerably pure; besides, their hard-frozen winter stock of walrus did not at this time tempt them to indulge their appetites immoderately. In January the temperature suffered an unseasonable rise, some successful captures of walrus also took place, and these circumstances, combined perhaps with some superstitious customs, of which we were ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... boat puts forth from the shelter of its weed-coated pier; for though Kirris-vean wears the aspect of a place of fishery, it is in fact nothing of the kind. Its inhabitants—blue-jerseyed males and sun-bonneted females—sit comfortably on their pensions and tempt no perils of the deep. Why should they risk shortening such lives as theirs? A few crab-pots—'accessories,' as a painter would say—rest on the beach above high-water mark, the summer through; a few tanned ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... reasons that tempt the critic to accept without reservation the general reader's view. For instance, many of the most important works of fiction have been inefficient in mere art. The "Don Quixote" of Cervantes is indubitably one of the very greatest ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... "Tempt them not by doubt," said Morven, reverently. "All things are possible to the rulers of the dark hour; and, lo! the star that loves thy servant spake to him at the dead of night, and said, 'Arise, and go unto the king; ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... "This will tempt dear little Dan," she said to herself. There were a few greengages just beginning to come to perfection on a tree near. Sibyl picked several to add to her pile of tempting fruit, and then she went in the direction of the stables. Ben was nowhere ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... bother with the details. Determine upon the logical order for your day's work. Think not so much of how you are to do things as of the things you are to do. Keep your mind on results. And having made your plan, stick to it. Be your own boss. Let nothing tempt you from your set purpose. Make this daily planning a habit and hold to it through life. It will give you a great lift toward whatever prize ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton

... be of new shapes and colors. Two or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. Proserpina's apron was soon filled and brimming over with delightful blossoms. She was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea-nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together. ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... Kipling, and when a man is craft mad enough to worship Maupassant truly and know him well, when he has that tingling for technique in his fingers, not Aphrodite herself, new risen from the waves, could tempt him into any world where craft was not lord and king. So it happened that their real love affair never began until one morning when "Landy" had to go down to the wharf to write up a whaleback, and "Blix" went along, and an old sailor told them a story and "Blix" recognized the literary possibilities ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... allowed to be offset against debts payable. In some states mortgages on real estate are exempted or (in Massachusetts) treated as an interest in the real estate. Rarely mortgages are exempted up to a certain amount (in Indiana, to $700, the purpose being to tempt the borrower to reveal the name of the lender). Sometimes a special mortgage registration tax, payable but once (in New York 1/2 of 1 per cent) is levied, and otherwise mortgages are free from taxation. Small as this rate is, the fiscal yield of mortgage taxation ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... sir; that's right; only let it be the last resort; recollect the Indian seeks the powder and ball, not the life of the boy; and recollect if we had not been so careless as to tempt him with the sight of what he values so much, he never would have annoyed ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... "But I will tempt you," cried Sir John eagerly. "Come, you can't let your old friend go without a companion, and stop here at home, knowing that there will be times when you could help Jack there on his ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... whose father had promised to cane him if he ever stepped foot on sail or rowboat, came down to the wharf in a sour-grape humor, to see us off. Nothing would tempt him to go out on the river in such a crazy clam-shell of a boat. He pretended that he did not expect to behold us alive again, and tried to throw a wet blanket over ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... me now? Is 't possible that my deserts to you Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery, Lest that it make me so unsound a man As to upbraid you with those kindnesses That ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... of our day may tempt us to underestimate the magnitude of the American Civil War, not only in respect of its issues, but in respect of the efforts that were put forth. Impartial historians declare that "no previous war had ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... object was the Golden Fleece: what that actually was can only be conjectured;—that no commercial advantages would tempt the people of that age is obvious, when we reflect on their habits and manners;—that the precious metals would be a powerful attraction, and would be regarded as cheaply acquired by the most hazardous enterprizes, is equally obvious. If Sir Walter Raleigh, sound as he was for ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... be off to North End. I hope you will find some way of entertaining yourself within doors, for certainly this is not a day to tempt a man to seek recreation abroad. Nothing but business of importance could take me out in ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... isn't a necessity—we'll go down by Munich and the Brenner to Italy, and I'll be cicerone. I'll act as banker, too, and you can regard it as a loan in the meantime, and pay me back when you're richer.—Now what do you say? Doesn't the plan tempt you?" ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... this," exclaimed Bona, suddenly starting up—"what is this you would tempt me to? You dare not even name the horrid deed you would have me commit. Avaunt! you are a devil, Albert Glinski!—you would drag me to perdition." Then, falling in tears upon his neck, she implored him not to tempt her further. "Oh, Albert! Albert!" she cried, "I beseech you, plunge me not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... on, arose and fled. None of the three came back; for discretion is not absent from the African, and those whom Richard personally disposed of felt as might ones who had escaped from some malignant providence which they did not think it wise or fitting to further tempt. As for number three, he was pleased to find himself a block away, and did all he might to add to it, like a miser to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, 75 And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye, That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; And keen ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... my governement, a field hath been wonne so honourably, I suppose that it is good, that I tempt not fortune any more, knowyng how variable, and unstable she is: and therefore, I desire to give up my governement, and that Zanobi do execute now this office of demaundyng, mindyng to followe the order, whiche concerneth the youngeste: and I knowe he will not ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... his middle in mud," searching for a plant he had heard of. I have not identified this instance of devotion, but we know of rarities which would demand perseverance and sufferings almost equal to secure them. If employers could find the heart to tempt a fellow-creature into such risks, the chances are that it would prove bad business. For to discover a new or valuable orchid is only the first step in a commercial enterprise. It remains to secure the "article," to bring it safely into a realm that may be called civilized, to pack it and superintend ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... procure either bread, meat, or any thing else: the house is crouded by an importation of prisoners from Abbeville, and we are more strictly guarded than ever. My friend ennuyes as usual, and I grow impatient, not having sang froid enough for a true French ennuie in a situation that would tempt one ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... will tempt Thee no more; for of a surety do we avail not, and, though we be devils, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... out, "Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not bid me tempt God, and die? How oft have you eat and drank your own damnation?" This sudden outbreak, from such a source, accompanied with the wild and apparently supernatural energy and uncontrollable vehemence with which the words were uttered, roused the multitude to the utmost pitch of horror; and the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... appeared to him as if sorcery were come right upon him, to tempt and corrupt him. He struck with his hand at the forest dove and cried in such a loud voice that it rang throughout the forest, "Go thou back to hell, ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... may tempt a pampered appetite or shed a languid odor, but the working world gets its food from fields of grain and orchards waving in the sun and free air, from cattle that wrestle on the plains, from fishes that struggle with currents of river or ocean; its choicest perfumes from flowers ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... properly cut. We have lately seen a brilliant which, if not a mountain of light, was yet a very respectable mound of radiance, valued at some ten or twelve thousand dollars, cut in this virgin settlement, and exposed in one of our shop-windows to tempt our frugal villagers. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... "You tempt me," he said. The tone of his voice was terrifying. He seemed choked in fright. They were both trembling. Rachel stood up and went. Her head was cold, her knees shaking, and the physical pain of the emotion was so great ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... bird's shrill notes jar her sensitive nerves. She abhors noise, and a canary's pipe is the most piercing and persistent of noises, welcome to that large majority of mankind which prefers sound of any kind to silence. Moreover, a cage presents just the degree of hindrance to tempt a cat's agility. That Puss habitually refrains from ridding the household of canaries is proof of her innate reasonableness, of her readiness to submit her finer judgment and more delicate instincts to the common caprices ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... him on, and the people in those regions are {naturally} much inclined to lustfulness. He burns, both by his own frailty and that of his nation. He has a desire to corrupt the care of her attendants, and the fidelity of her nurse, and {besides}, to tempt herself with large presents, and to spend his whole kingdom {in so doing}; or else, to seize her, and, when seized, to secure her by a cruel war. And there is nothing which, being seized by an unbridled passion, he ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... little practice, this method of saving prints that are too dark becomes easy and certain. The prints are lightened and at the same time improved in tone, being made blue-black with a delicate and pleasing quality that will tempt you to purposely overexpose some of your prints in order to tone them by this method for certain effects. The process is particularly valuable to the worker in large sizes, as it provides a means of making quite a saving of paper that ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... weight to the consequences resulting therefrom), notwithstanding order on order and some exemplary punishments, had been incorrigibly guilty of every excess. It had not only seized with violence all that its wants demanded, but destroyed in mere wantonness what did not tempt its cupidity. No vandal ferocity was ever more destructive. Those crimes, however, were not committed with impunity. Want, sickness, and an enraged peasantry, inflicted terrible reprisals, and caused daily ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... the thought that, no matter what he urged, she must remember that she wanted to be free, to live her own life, to fill her own sphere of usefulness, and she must not let him tempt her to forget this. She had next to consider him, and that she must be hard and keep him from speaking at all; and this was very difficult, for she cared for him very dearly. She strengthened her determination by thinking of his going away, and of how glad she ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... comrade unhandicapped with an open field? That, however, seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other explanation that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her lest he should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory, which brought the blood to her face as it had done already, since it suggested that he fancied he had only to urge her sufficiently and she would yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all. Only ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... pleasantly. 'The episode is closed. I am a man of peace, and I take it that you would not keep on lying quietly on that bed while I went into the other room and abstracted our young friend? Unless you have changed your mind again, would a fifty-fifty offer tempt you?' ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... officers, and no less so to the landholders, cultivators, and people of all classes. Their wealth consists in their credit in different parts of India; and he who has most of it may have little at his house to tempt the robber, while the Government officers stand generally too much in daily need of his services and mediation to molest him. A pledge made by these officers to landholders and cultivators, or to these officers by such ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... territory, free, absolutely free, from subsoil moisture, a climate mild and equable, a soil capable of producing nearly everything necessary for the comfortable maintenance of human life, surroundings that tempt, nay, compel the greatest possible amount of open air life. His description is exceedingly accurate of a plain, primitive, simple-minded people with but few wants, many of the virtues and few of the vices of humanity. With their surroundings, soil, climate, residence, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... whiskers; his hair, close in front, long on the sides and behind, with its wild, ruddy hue throwing into relief the strange and fatal character of the physiognomy; his short, thick neck, designed to tempt the hatchet of the guillotine: these details, so accurately photographed, not only prove that M. Michu was a resolute, faithful servant, capable of the profoundest secresy and the most disinterested attachment, but for the really skilful reader of mystic symbols ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... what he said. The man is here, and I can see—and hear, when I choose—for myself. Do you think I would tempt you to violate what might be a ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... lot of your married life, though they may magnify themselves to your crushed spirit as beyond the nature, the endurance of woman to bear, resolve to bear them; fall down upon your knees, and pray to be enabled to bear them—pray for patience—pray for strength to resist the demon that would tempt you to escape; bear unto death, rather than forfeit your fair name and your good conscience; for be assured that the alternative, if you do rush on to it, will be found worse ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... was quite unable to recover any of his former dignities, but he continued to hold the priestly honour against his will; and yet the vision had often come to the man that he would arrive at royalty. For the divine power is accustomed to tempt those whose minds are not solidly grounded by nature, by holding before their vision, on great and lofty hopes, that which is counted splendid among men. At any rate the marvel-mongers were always predicting to this John many such imaginary things, and especially that he was bound to ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... pernicious toils, Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind? To mix with kings in the low lust of sway, Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray? ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... tempt the poor gaunt cat into her arms, meaning to carry it home and befriend it; but it was scared by her endeavour and ran back to its home in the outhouse, making a green path across the white dew of the meadow. Then Sylvia began to hasten home, thinking, and remembering—at the stile that led ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... happy, in comparison, are those disembodied entities who sleep their long slumber and live in dream in the bosom of Space! And woe to those whose Trishna will attract them to mediums, and woe to the latter who tempt them with such an easy Upadana. For, in grasping them and satisfying their thirst for life, the medium helps to develop in them—is, in fact, the cause of—a new set of Skandhas, a new body with far worse tendencies and passions than the one they lost. All the ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant

... by this time I was so discouraged I gladly accepted the five-dollar goldpiece he held out to tempt me. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... to where Bowser the Hound was a prisoner of kindness. Blacky was smart enough to know that if he seemed too anxious for Reddy to make that long journey, Reddy would at once suspect something. He knew well enough that if Reddy had any idea that Bowser the Hound was over there, nothing would tempt him ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess

... tree Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies; The hills are giant waves of glistering snow; Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see, With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough, And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now Fear starving Winter ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... better if you kept your people and cultivated more largely," said I, "Oh, Machemba sends his men and robs our gardens after we have cultivated," was the reply. One man said that the Arabs who come and tempt them with fine clothes are the cause of their selling: this was childish, so I told them they would very soon have none to sell: their country was becoming jungle, and all their people who did not die in the road would be making gardens for Arabs ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... "Hoping to tempt you to come I will hereby tell you more'n I told you in my other letters, the terminal moraine of this here Golden Glacier finishes into a marsh, nothing to see for miles excep' frozen tussock and mud and all flat as hell for fifty miles which ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... they were placed; and rather than chafe and pine in unwilling confinement, would put themselves at hazard, that they might revel at large and wanton in the wilderness. Deriving their sustenance chiefly from the woods, the strong arm of necessity led many to tempt the perils which environed them; while to the more chivalric and adventurous "the danger's self were lure alone." The quiet and stillness which reigned around, even when the enemy were lurking nearest and in ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... eighty-six!" Doan shook his head. "I couldn't take that many on just now; I've made other plans. Unless, of course, you are in a position to tempt me to buy by making me a very ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... inviting waves is not so soft as the sound of those feeble voices,—the freedom they promise is not powerful to tempt him; behold the arms that hang powerless yonder, and the hearts whose tides are more wondrous than those of the sea! The halcyon days shall never break through eternal ages on him, if he will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... came here, as there was nothing to tempt them, the rock candy being very hard and difficult ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum

... Chamouni." The good soul! I was much of his opinion. If I had been born within sight of glorious Mont Blanc, with its apocalyptic clouds, and store of visions, not all the fat pork and flat prairies of Indiana and Ohio could tempt me. No wonder the Swiss die for their native valleys! I would if I were they. I asked him about education. He said his children went to a school kept by Catholic sisters, who taught reading, writing, and Latin. The dialect of Chamouni ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... from me.' And in the matter of the Mysteries, his reason for not following the usual practice was this: if the Mysteries turned out to be bad, he would never be able to keep quiet about it to the uninitiated, but must dissuade them from the ceremony; while, if they were good, humanity would tempt him to divulge them. The Athenians, stone in hand already, were at once disarmed, and from that time onwards paid him honour and respect, which ultimately rose to reverence. Yet he had opened his case with a bitter enough reproof: 'Men of Athens, you see me ready garlanded; ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... reflex of his nature, whose heart is essentially all goodness, whose aims are so high, that I break out impetuously sometimes: "But your family, Doctor, they would like to see you, oh! so much. Let me tempt you to come home with me. I promise to carry you every foot of the way to the coast. You shall have the finest donkey to ride that is in Unyanyembe. Your wants—you have but to hint them, and they shall be satisfied. Let the sources of the Nile go—do you come ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... In the morning light, after the sun had risen, clouds of butterflies, many-colored, sunshine-loving creatures, large and small, in infinite variety, flitted about the bungalow, some with such gaudy spread of wing as to tempt pursuit—but without a proper net they are difficult to secure. Large brown, bronze, and yellow beetles walked through the short grass with the coolness and gait of young poultry. Occasionally a chameleon turned up its singularly bright ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... to have told us about it, sir, you ought to have told us about it! Those millions are known to be in the train, and they will tempt people to attack us. And an attack, even if repulsed, will mean delay, and delay I will not submit to! No, sir, ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... this sketch, I wish to say that the literary associations of the subject did not tempt me; but I could not resist the inducement to present in its proper character an interesting incident which can be truly comprehended only when it is recognized in its political relations. To this end it was important to exhibit its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... all India under one umbrella, that is, of constituting it into one state. This phrase seems to support the idea that the umbrella symbolised the firmament. Similarly, when Visvamitra sent beautiful maidens to tempt the good king Harischandra he instructed them to try and induce the king to marry them, and if he would not do this, to ask him for the Puchukra Undi or State Umbrella, which was the emblem of the king's protecting ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... upon their leader, and disputed with him, saying: "Wherefore is this, children, that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children, and our cattle with thirst?" Moses replied: "As often as you quarrel with me, you tempt God, but God performeth wonders and excellent deeds for you, as often as you dispute with me, that His name may sound ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... Abraham's servant praying at the well.—"When we find people wishing to take advantage of us and cheat us, what should we do?" "Leave them;" and referred to Jacob with his family leaving Laban.—"Were any one to tempt you to lie or commit a sin, what should you do?" "We ought not to be tempted;" and referred to Abraham making Sarah tell a lie in Egypt.—"How should you behave to strangers?" "We should be kind to them;" and referred to Lot lodging the angels.—"Were a master or mistress to have the choice ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... "Tempt me no farther. What! immolate a whole hecatomb of guiltless women and children? Consider ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... experiences possess a peculiar charm for the Triton of the Tribune. When Mr. GREELEY wishes to write against capital punishment—which he does about every time the moon changes—he naturally turns over a few pages of Thirty Years in Washington. When he purposes to tempt the bounding bean of the kitchen garden of Chappaqua, or humble the hopeful harrow of agriculture, he may be found either at the Italian Opera, serenely sleeping under the soporific strains of Sonnambula, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various

... of the German chorale, and the recent great development of interest in folk-music, together with the unique importance of Bach's work, have combined to tempt writers on music to over-estimate the distinctness of the art-forms based upon the German chorale. There is really nothing in these art-forms which is not continuous with the universal practice of writing counterpoint on a canto fermo. And it should never be forgotten that, however ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... "You mustn't tempt me. The doctor has shut down on all kinds of spirits for two months more, at least. But don't let me hinder you. I can bear to smell the stuff. My turn will ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... precise phrases began to get on the nerves of the irrepressible Natalie. At the same time the exquisite clarity of the Northern summer air, the delicate mantling blue overhead, and the liquid sunshine on the foliage all began to tempt her sorely. Across the road a field of squirrel-tail, dimpling silkily in the breeze, stretched to the river bank, and she saw she could cross it without passing any house. Natalie was never the one to resist such a lure; she sent the child away on an imaginary errand, and slipping ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... good deal. Say the Countess was a fire and High March an armchair. Prosper had settled himself to stretch his legs and drowse. Poor Isoult was the wailing wind in the chimney—a sound which could but add to his comfortable well-being. It needs more than a whimper to tempt a man to be cold in your ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... express more than one side of things—the moral world. This moral world man bathes in, as much as, more than, in the material world. He lives in what he feels, more than in what he sees. Creation may beset him, want may assail him, pleasure may tempt him, the beast within him may torment him, but all in vain; a sort of incessant aspiration toward another world impels him irresistibly beyond creation, beyond want, beyond pleasure, beyond the ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... long without food on our stomachs, that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good, ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even at the plainest tables, to tempt us to excess, that there is more danger of injury from the addition of fruit than ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... he ordered, threw himself into the affair heartily, with the result that by five o'clock relays of cooks and other attendants were to be seen streaming up Dirk's staircase, carrying every variety of dish that could be supposed to tempt the ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... for dry-goods I have nothing to say, for they tempt the unwary American to violate the revenue laws of his country; but he may safely go into the book-shops. The literature which is displayed in the windows and on the counters has lost that freshness which it once may have had, and is, in fact, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... strange, Herr Cancellarius, that you should so persistently avoid my questions," said the Prince. "You tempt me to suppose a purpose in your dulness. I have asked you whether all was quiet; do ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... then to the mess-room, where a piece of well-broiled steak, freshly cut from one of the oxen, was brought by the cook, emitting an aroma agreeable enough; but it did not tempt the young officer, whose one idea was to mount and ride away for the kopje. Certainly it was not only like fresh meat—very tough—but it possessed the toughness of years piled-up by an ox whose life had been passed helping to drag a tow-rope on trek. So half of it was left, and ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... tempt me. You do not understand I love you with a fierce, passionate love. If you were near me, I should be compelled to show that love to you every hour of the day—to treat you as my dear and honored wife. If you were near me, I might forget my ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... exasperated by hatred, and the charities of private life soured by political aversion." [These expressions occur in Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time.] Fear, religion, ambition, and self-interest,—everything that could tempt and everything that could deter,—were enlisted on the side of the dominant opinions. To profess Liberal views was to be excluded from all posts of emolument, from all functions of dignity, and from all opportunities of public usefulness. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... said, 'It is useless to serve God, And what gain is it to us to have kept his charge, And that we have walked in funeral garb before him? Even now we call the proud happy, Yea, those who work iniquity thrive, Yea, they tempt ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... she said, with a pretty half-mournful, half-playful glance. "'A petted bride makes an unhappy wife.' Surely it is no true kindness to tempt us to count on an ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... about the business: not in apprehension of the law, for she never thought of that too probable intrusion on the finder: but simply because her unsophisticated piety believed that God, for some wise end, had allowed the Evil One to tempt her father; she, indeed, did not ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... me that it was the utmost he could afford to give, Senor; and it was quite enough to tempt me. Why, were I to work all my life at my trade as a carrier, I could never hope to save fifty doubloons, nay, nor the fourth part of that sum. It is not so very long ago that I risked my life constantly as a contrabandista, ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... two every morning that she might play better in the afternoon, she ransacked the library for interesting and cheerful things to read to him, and she even found a game or two that he seemed to enjoy. From Madame Francesca's spotless kitchen came many a dainty dish to tempt his capricious appetite, and all the flowers from both gardens, daily, made a bower ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... a new and higher life, with Jesus as your Ruler and Guide. From this fact come two others; first that we are not free to sin, because if we do wrong, we sin not against ourselves, but against Jesus Christ, "whose we are, and whom we serve." I do not say that sin will not come in our way, will not tempt us. We must, in passing through the world, encounter foul smells, hideous sights, dirty roads. But we can turn away from the foul smell, we can shut our eyes to the bad sight, we can pick our way carefully over the dirty road. So if sin meets us, we must turn aside from it, we must ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

... few squaws among the company, but they did not tempt a second glance. They were wooden-faced, slovenly-looking creatures almost disgusting in appearance. They were loaded with string upon string of colored beads forming a solid mass, like a huge collar, from the point of their ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... know why I came," she said—"whether with a vague idea of giving you the chance to speak, and so seizing the opportunity to warn you that your soliloquies were audible to me—whether to tempt you to speak and make it plain to you that I am not one of the thousand shop-girls you have observed after ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... crowd. He was very much alone. And he enjoyed his solitude. A word and a smile now and then from an acquaintance did not tempt him to come out of his seclusion. The gay scene pleased him. He looked for a moment into the ballroom. At another time he would have tried his fortune in the whirl. But now he looked on as at a spectacle from which he was detached. He had had his moment and he waited for ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... despondency may sometimes tempt us, thinking of slow advancement and of dying men who fade from the place of the living before the gradual light has reached their eyes, our duty is plain—to be sure that the word we carry cannot fail. You ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... boy and girl in the room. But Isaac was still silent. No halcyon suggestion beginning, "Suppose I were to give you a dollar and you spent half of it for candy," no imaginary shopping orgie, could tempt him ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... the table after compelling Serina to sit down and eat. There was little to tempt the appetite and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... watched—instinct guiding my eyes to the ebony chair—I heard a creak, and the sound of Something breathing. The antagonistic Presence was once again there. I essayed to speak, to repeat the form of address I had constantly rehearsed, to say and do something that would tempt the unknown into some form of communication. I could do nothing. I was lip-bound, powerless to move; and then from out of the superphysical darkness there gleamed the eyes, lidless, lurid, bestial. A shape was there, too: a shape which, although still vague, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... appetite did justice to her words, we did not feel her praise as flattery. I had made some of my snow cake, and it was the best, I think, I ever made. Mother had cream biscuit, blackberry jelly, some cold fowl, and, to tempt the appetite of our city visitor, a few of the old speckled hen's finest and freshest eggs, dropped on toast. She did not slight any of our cooking, and my cake was particularly praised. When mother told her I made it, the little lady looked at me so brightly as she said, "You must keep ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... the fairy bell, and often tried to win some fragrance from the flower by kind and pleasant words and actions; then, as the Fairy said, she found a sweet reward in the strange, soft perfume of the magic blossom as it shone upon her breast; but selfish thoughts would come to tempt her, she would yield, and unkind words fell from her lips; and then the flower drooped pale and scentless, the fairy bell rang mournfully, Annie would forget her better resolutions, and be again ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... And I said unto him: What am I that I should tempt God to show unto thee a sign in the thing which thou knowest to be true? Yet thou wilt deny it, because thou art of the devil. Nevertheless, not my will be done; but if God shall smite thee, let that be a sign unto ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... understanding and mild manners. He came to offer me his hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his attachment, for I have seen but very little of him, and have not had time to have formed any judgment except that I think nothing could tempt me to leave my own dear friends and my own country ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... care, that never must be mine, How happy he who crowns in shades like these, A youth of labour with an age of ease; 100 Who quits a world where strong temptations try And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state 105 To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; Bends to the grave with unperceiv'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... smooth-sounding words in which to dress, without disguising, a distinctly ugly idea. "I've heard that, too. I don't know whether there's anything in it or not." She looked admiringly at Mildred, who that morning was certainly lovely enough to tempt any man. "If there is anything in it, why, I reckon YOU'D be up against it. That's the worst of having men at the top in any trade and profession. A woman's got to get her chance through some man, and if he don't choose to let her have it, she's ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... consuls and to Pompey. [-16-] He made these same statements also to the populace, when that body had likewise assembled outside the pomerium, and he sent for corn from the islands and promised each one of them seventy-five denarii. He hoped to tempt them with this bait. The men, however, reflected that those who are pursuing certain ends and those who have attained them do not think or act alike: at the start of their operations they make all the ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... time comes, they will not want me. Oh, Philip! you are grieved for them, and you long to see them prosperous. Do not tempt me to desert them now. They want my help; they want the little money I have; they want my hands and head. Let this be your share of the penalty Mrs Rowland imposes upon us all—to spare me to them while their ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... was struck from her hand and lay in twenty pieces on the floor, and the beer ran hurriedly over the boards and sank away between the crevices as if anxious to hide itself. "You dare to tempt me!" said Tom hoarsely. ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... probably asleep. It would be soon enough to wake her when Regina had considered what she should say in order to get the information Marcello wanted. Settimia would deny having had any communication with Corbario, or that she knew anything of his whereabouts. The next step would probably be to tempt her with money or other presents. If this failed, what was to be done? Somehow Regina guessed that a bribe would not have much effect ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... inherited the Blackwater property while still a young man. Neither he nor his wife after taking possession, made advances of any sort towards the society of the neighbourhood, and no one endeavoured to tempt them into abandoning their reserve, with the one disastrous exception of the rector of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... by delaying for other troops. But the Indians had no wish to retire, to avoid the whites. The trail left by them, to the experienced eye of Daniel Boone, furnished convincing evidence, that they were only solicitous to conceal their numbers, in reality to tempt pursuit. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... to me in prison [? at Saltwood Castle] on the Friday before, communing with me in this matter of confession: and, certain, by his words, I thought that this man came then to me of full fervent and charitable will. But now I know, he came to tempt me and to accuse me. GOD forgive him, if it ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... attaining its old hold upon him. He took his meals at a shabby little restaurant, which none of his associates frequented, declined all invitations, and retired for the next seven days into an obscurity from which nothing could tempt him. There came no word from Emily de Reuss, for which he was thankful, and when he left the office at six o'clock on Thursday evening, and lighting a cigarette strolled through a network of streets towards the restaurant ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... renounced the Papal supremacy for the space of 300 years, and had grown strong in the liberty which had followed the downfall of such thraldom. Oxford had taught Rome to tempt England; the leaders of the so-called Anglican revival were responsible for the flourish of trumpets at the Vatican. Lord John's ecclesiastical appointments called forth sharp criticism. He was a Protestant of the old uncompromising type, with leanings towards advanced ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... almost tempt us to say that Shakespeare was a gardener by profession; certainly no other passages that have been brought to prove his real profession are more minute than this. It proves him to have had practical experience in the work, and I think we may safely say that he was no ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... and we constantly came upon subjects which would tempt the artist to stop and sketch—a monk seated under an olive-tree in the shade; cattle and sheep tethered to the grey trunks, grouping themselves as they clustered for company; a boat under sail seen through the branches of the trees against a headland on the more distant ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... who ride in glass coaches should not throw stones. I will have Charles at my feet again. I will have my foot upon his neck again. I cannot use him too ill for the pain he gives me. There, go—go! Why did you tempt me to lay my ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... I think I may say that nothing shall tempt me to put my name to another bill. I have learned a lesson which I hope ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... furiously hungry of course everything tasted just splendid; but then it was good without any starvation sauce to tempt them, for Josh had always proved a remarkably clever cook, even though caring ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... tomorrow, it is the cheat of life —the future that never comes—the grave of many noble births —the cavern of ruined enterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born, and dies, and perishes, ere the voice of him who sees can cry, BEHOLD! BEHOLD!! You may trust to what I say, no power shall tempt me to betray confidence. Suffer me to add ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... power to rob us of our joy, they have a very formidable power to interfere with the cultivation of that faith, which is the essential condition of our joy. They cannot force us away from Christ, but they may tempt us away. The sunshine did for the traveller in the old fable what the storm could not do; and the world may cause you to think so much about it that you forget your Master. Its joys may compel Him to hide His face, and may so fill your eyes that you do not care to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... disdained to feed basely on the ground when they could feed upward, ennobling almost every gulp with a glimpse of the upper creation. Mrs. Carnaby loved these "graceful creatures," as she always called them, when fried well; and she thought it so good and so clever of her son to tempt ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... still five shillings in his pocket—enough to pay the postage on sixty letters, he grimly reflected. So far he had had no occasion to spend money for anything else, and no beggar had crossed his path to tempt from him the little he had. He needed nothing beyond his food, and of that the Ketterings' hospitality provided a sufficiency, though by the third day the over-profusion of plain dishes ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... of great Reflection to the Politicians of those Times, who could hardly allow, that if the Confederate Army suffer'd so much, as it really did in the Battle of Landen, it could consist with right Conduct to tempt, or rather dare a new Engagement. But those sage Objectors had forgot the well-known Courage of that brave Prince, and were as little capable of fathoming his Designs. The Enemy, who to their Sorrow had by Experience been made better Judges, was resolv'd to traverse both; for which Purpose ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... Hugh "what was it I did to you? or how could the devil out of hell tempt me to—to—to—oh! Felix agra, say you're not hurted—say only that you'll be as well as ever, an I take God and every one present to witness, that from this minute till the day of my death, a harsh word 'll never crass my lips to you. Say you're not hurted, ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... quarters are full of charm. The soft reds and browns of the houses, the old-world architecture and romantic sites, tempt an artist at every turn. And all in love with a Venetian existence may ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... round one; turn the head, magnetize; lobby. persuade; prevail with, prevail upon; overcome, carry; bring round to one's senses, bring to one's senses; draw over, win over, gain over, come over, talk over; procure, enlist, engage; invite, court. tempt, seduce, overpersuade^, entice, allure, captivate, fascinate, bewitch, carry away, charm, conciliate, wheedle, coax, lure; inveigle; tantalize; cajole &c (deceive) 545. tamper with, bribe, suborn, grease the palm, bait with a silver hook, gild the pill, make things pleasant, put a sop into the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... await "Thy last remains; thy corse will be inhum'd "In ancestorial sepulchres. Ah, no! "Such fortune smiles not on our house; the tears "A mother can bestow, are all thy gifts; "Sprinkled with foreign dust. All have I lost. "Of the whole stock I could as parent boast, "To tempt me now still longer to sustain "This life, my Polydore alone is left; "Once least of all my manly sons, erst given "To Thracia's monarch's care, upon these shores. "But why delay to cleanse that ghastly wound "With water, and that face, with spouting blood "Besmear'd."—She ceas'd, and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... the gold in the Colorado couldn't tempt me like something to eat. If you aren't ready by the time the fire's going, Mack, ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... midst of his cursings, his hot indignation, would come visions of himself in his own modest rooms. He seemed to be yawning and stretching in his beautiful bed, the sun shining in, his books, foils, pictures around him, to say good morning and tempt him to rise, while the squat little clock on the mantel struck ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... this decision has not been made without father and me being sensible of a keen feeling of disappointment. We had planned to sacrifice an old hen that has outlived her margin of profit, hoping that, with the admixture of a pinch of saleratus, she would prove tender enough to tempt the appetite of a lumberjack, but, upon sober second thought, it seems the part of ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... not tempt me. Lindkvist is not a rich man, and needs what is due him.—When my father got through with it all it was like a battle-field of dead and wounded—and mother believes father is a martyr! Shall we go out and take ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... severe plague raged among the animals. Many died, and those who lived were so ill, that they cared for neither food nor drink, and dragged themselves about listlessly. No longer could a fat young hen tempt Master Fox to dinner, nor a tender lamb ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop

... feet Arthur stood with folded arms, gazing pityingly upon her, himself now the stronger of the two. "Edith, you, of all others, must not tempt me to fall. You surely will counsel me to do right! Help me! oh, help me! I am so weak, and I feel my good resolutions all giving way at sight of your distress! If it will take one iota from your pain to know that Nina shall never be my acknowledged wife, save as she is ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... horses, which were constantly parading the streets, led by countrymen in blouses, to tempt us to mount, and took short excursions in the vicinity. Sometimes we made what is called the tour of the springs; of which there are several, each differing from the others in its medicinal properties, and only one of which ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... attitude I fear to speak. Grossness disgusts me; but I am not sure that I should be able to resist temptation placed in my way. But I am absolutely sure that I should never, under any circumstances, tempt others to any disgraceful act. If I ever committed any sexual act with one of my own sex whom I loved, I could not look at it or approach it in any other than a sacramental way. This sounds blasphemous and shocking, but I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and deception in all their real deformity, and not by painting in glowing colours the fascinating allurements, the mischievous frolics and vicious habits of the profligate, the heedless, and the debauchee, tempt youth to commit those irregularities which often lead to dangerous consequences, not only to themselves but also to the public." This shot of course was aimed at Pierce Egan, who, engaged at that time in bringing ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... patrons as to those of the saloon next door—more familiar to both than it was to Hudson's "residence." Sometimes for weeks Dickie did not strain the scant welcome of his "folks." To-night, however, he was resolved to tempt it. After listening to the record, he strolled ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... hints. The bottom of the sack is not yet; there are the monographs, years of study expended upon one species of plant growing in one locality, perhaps; some made up into thick books and some into broad quarto pamphlets, with most beautiful plates, that, if you were to see them, would tempt you to cut them out and steal them, all sunk and lost like dead ships under the sand: piles of monographs. There are warehouses in London that are choked to the beams of the roof with them, and every ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... containing the provisions that were daily issued out, had been robbed; and one night an attempt was made to get into the upper part of my house, where the slops were deposited. Great rewards had been offered to tempt one or other to discover their accomplices, but without effect: however, at eleven o'clock in the night of the 23d, Thomas Watson, a convict, was detected in another convict's house, stealing a ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... "Tempt not Heaven, my child, for 'with God all things are possible,'" said Lady Trevelyan, who was a truly Christian woman. "Everything is ordered aright," continued her ladyship, "there are no afflictions or trials in life ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... him at foot; tempt him with speed abroad, Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night; Away! for everything is sealed and done That else leans on the affair; ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... bribe could not tempt him to reveal the secret, and in such cases I make it a rule to try the trick exactly as I ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... read too much. Fairy stories are all right in their way, but to give a child all the fairy tales he can read is a serious mistake. Hundreds of pretty, inane, senseless stories in attractive bindings with pretty, characterless illustrations tempt the children to vitiate their taste in reading, long before they are able by themselves ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... mind, Noni; don't tempt me. I will run away from here. At night, when I am already fast asleep, you swoop down on me like a demon, grab me by the neck, and drag me over here—I can't understand anything. Tell me, my boy, is it necessary to ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... needless to select for illustration of my views, those particular instances which were likely to be most offensive to persons of another way of thinking. But any supposition that may have been entertained that the old familiar tones of the ecclesiastical war-drum will tempt me to engage in such needless discussion had better be renounced. I shall do nothing of the kind. Let it suffice that I ask my readers to turn to the twenty-third chapter of Luke (revised version), verse thirty-four, and he will find in ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... agreeable chat until Mr. Grandon comes in, when Denise sends up some tea and wafer biscuits that would tempt an anchorite. The carriage is at the door for Gertrude, and an urgent note for Floyd, who has been deep in business all the ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... chasm of sky above my head Is Heaven's profoundest azure. No domain For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy, Or to pass through;—but rather an abyss In which the everlasting stars abide, And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt The curious eye to look for them ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... Convention armed its deputies with this power and sent them to the southern departments of the Republic. The massacres, murders, and other atrocities which they committed show what the passions of the ablest men in the most civilized society will tempt them to do when ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson



Words linked to "Tempt" :   temptation, mesmerize, hook, charm, spellbind, decoy, attract, persuade, sex, bait, stir, appeal, magnetize, shake up, call, snare, arouse, magnetise, provoke, turn on, bewitch, stool, bid, tweedle, temptable, seduce, mesmerise, wind up, excite, entice, shake, lead on, stimulate



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