God delights in our temptations and yet hates them. He delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair.  (Martin Luther)

My temptations have been my masters in divinity.  (Martin Luther)

Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole; yielding is opening the door and inviting him in.  (Billy Sunday)

Straw should make no pact with fire.  (Russian Proverb)

Step not on the sleeping serpent.  (Spanish Proverb)

Vigilance required: opportunity knocks only once, yet temptation bangs on the door constantly.

‘Set a strong guard about the outward senses: these are Satan’s landing places, especially the eye and the ear.’  (William Gurnall)

‘A rock, though beaten on by winds and waves, is immoveable; so faith, grounded on the rock Christ, holds out in all temptations.’  (Chrysostom)

‘The devil may advise, but cannot force, to sin.  If the devil alone were advising, and God keeping silence, man might excuse himself.  But God, by reason, by the Scriptures, by ministers, cries, SIN NOT.  God is on the right hand, Satan on the left; man is in the midst.  God persuades man to good, Satan dissuades; but man yields to the devil, not to God!’  (Hildebert)

“Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it” (John Owen)

We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself to us in its true colours, saying, “I am your deadly enemy, and I want to ruin you for ever in hell.”  Oh, no! sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss; and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words.  The forbidden fruit seemed good and desirable to Eve; yet it cast her out of Eden.  The walking idly on his palace roof seemed harmless enough to David; yet it ended in adultery and murder.  Sin rarely seems sin at first beginnings.  Let us then watch and pray, lest we fall into temptation.  (Ryle, Holiness, 7)

To learn to say “No” will be of far greater service than to know Latin.  (Spurgeon)