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Literary notes about Tempt (AI summary)

The word "tempt" in literature functions as a multifaceted term that conveys both the lure of desire and the cautionary call to resist vice. It often emphasizes a moral or ethical challenge, inviting characters to confront inner conflicts—whether it is warning against straying from one’s duty ([1], [2]) or eliciting a dangerous allure that may derail a chosen path ([3], [4]). At times, the term also takes on a spiritual or theological dimension, as when divine admonitions counsel against provoking the sacred ([5], [6], [7]). Additionally, "tempt" can capture the subtleties of human ambition and attraction, from the delicate enticement of forbidden love ([8], [9]) to the more pragmatic risk of courting fortune or fate ([10], [11]). Such diverse applications highlight its enduring role in articulating the tensions between aspiration, morality, and the inherent peril of overstepping bounds ([12], [13]).
  1. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty?
    — from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
  2. And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  3. Let nothing tempt you or swerve you a hair's breadth from your aim, and you will win.
    — from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden
  4. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, 96 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, 97
    — from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare
  5. And Peter said unto her: Why have you agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord?
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  6. Tempt not God, sweet friend; but let us into the next room, and there pray for him.
    — from The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
  7. Jesus said to him: It is written again: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 4:8.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  8. If thou unto thy Muse be marryed, Embrace her ever, ever multiply, Be far from me that strange Adulterie To tempt thee and procure her widowhed.
    — from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) by John Donne
  9. "And that will tempt YOU, Miss Marianne.
    — from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  10. “On the contrary, it would tempt me were I any other man,” rejoined Aramis; “but I repeat, I am made up of contradictions.
    — from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  11. He wanted to go to Paris and tempt fortune in some of the public gambling-houses that abounded there.
    — from Best Russian Short Stories
  12. What terror hath bidden one or another run after arms and tempt the sword?
    — from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil
  13. Now therefore, why tempt you God to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete

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