Friday, May 1, 2009

Temptation


"A silly idea is current that good people don’t know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist."


1 comment:

  1. I love C.S. Lewis! I need to dig up a few of his books and read 'em. Thanks for the GREAT quote! how true it is ...

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