A Quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote Topics

Bitterness Never Succumb Temptation

Quote Author

Martin Luther King, Jr.
American - Leader
January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the instruments of love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have learned that as an artist, I cannot succumb to the temptation to please others.

Kiana Madeira

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.

Stephen Batchelor

I am in the pitiable situation of feeling all the force of temptation without having the strength to succumb to it.

Lord Chesterfield

Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb.

Catherynne M. Valente

Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. ... 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 also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.

C. S. Lewis

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

There was no time for bitterness now: eat bitterness, and bitterness eats you.

Joan Slonczewski

He who cannot resist temptation is not a man. Whoever yields to temptation debases himself with a debasement from which he can never arise.

Horace Mann

My relationship with my father still troubles me because it never got resolved, and there was no closure. There was a lot of bitterness, but having written about it, I found that I was able to overcome that bitterness and look at the relationship anew.

Naseeruddin Shah

No one is so good that he is immune from temptation. We will never be entirely free from it. . . . There is no order so holy, no place so secret where there will be no temptation.

Thomas a Kempis

The separation of church and state can sometimes be frustrating for women and men of deep religious faith. They may be tempted to misuse government in order to impose a value which they cannot persuade others to accept. But once we succumb to that temptation, we step onto a slippery slope where everyone's freedom is at risk.

Edward Kennedy

Acrid bitterness inevitably seeps into the lives of people who harbor grudges and suppress anger, and bitterness is always a poison. It keeps your pain alive instead of letting you deal with it and get beyond it. Bitterness sentences you to relive the hurt over and over.

Lee Strobel

I do think you can see, throughout American history, this temptation, and it's both a liberal and a conservative temptation, to take a healthy patriotism a little too far. For liberals the temptation is to say the purpose of politics is to straightforwardly bring the kingdom of God to Earth. For conservatives, I talk about Glenn Beck, the temptation is more apocalyptic and messianic, it's the temptation to say we did have a covenant with God, a literal covenant beginning with the Founding, and we are, like Israel in the Old Testament, falling away from it.