Rodney Crowell Quotes

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

Dali is like a man who hesitates between talent and genius, or, as one might once have said, between vice and virtue.

Oh, I am an angel, though sometimes I wish I was more of a devil.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

You can only learn so much from books. You can only learn so much from education. Ultimately, it is the wisdom of God that will carry you through in the toughest situations of life.

Men have the power of thinking that they may avoid sin.

To light one candle to God and another to the Devil is the principle of wisdom.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

The word for knowledge appears in the Koran more often than any other except God.

Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not.

The great of heart is a gift of god. He who obeys his belly, obeys the enemy

How could you do nothing to him, if you fought so hard?” she asked. “I’m lust and he’s wrath!” he yelled. “I’m a lover, he’s a fighter!” Virtue - A Fairy Tale

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.

So now the devil's in my soul.

If reason dominates in man, he rises higher than angels. If lust overpowers man, he descends lower than the beast.

The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.

He who cannot hate the devil cannot love God.

If you scratch some saints you will find the devil.

When you resolve to become pious, the devil in your nature cries out at you, "Tread not those paths, O confused one; distress and poverty will overcome you. You will be despised, let down by friends, you will regret it." Dread of the devil has bound their souls; the cries of the devil are the drover of the damned; the call of the Lord is a guardian of the saints.

Evil, which is our companion all our days, is not to be treated as a foe. It is wrong to cocker vice, but we grow narrow and pithless if we are furtive about it, for this is at best a pretense, and the sage knows good and evil are kindred. The worst of men harm others, and the best injure themselves.