Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.

We are no guiltier in following the primative impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves.

You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair

The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.

I am of a different mind ten times in the course of a day. But I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away. When he tempts me with silly sins I say, 'Devil, yesterday I broke wind too. Have you written it down on your list?

The devil and temptations also do give occasion unto us somewhat to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without trials and temptations we should never understand anything thereof; no, not although we diligently read and heard the same.

If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much? ... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy.

that prudence of yours makes you veer about, determined not to commit yourself to either side, but to pass safely between Scylla and Charybdis; with the result that, finding yourself battered and buffeted by the waves in the midst of the sea, you assert everything you deny and deny everything you assert.

Do not be discouraged by people to whom Christ is just a joke and a laughingstock...they live on, certain of everything and untroubled by the devil. Why should he bother them? They already belong to him. You and I are the ones he would like to seize. Now how will he do that? He will continue attacking you with small things until he gets to your substance. But resist him. He who is with us is greater than he who is in the world.

My temptations have been my masters in divinity.

Even if Christians are completely surrounded by sin, they should still fight against it. Some people think they're Christians because they've been baptized. These people give their desires free rein and don't care about conquering their sins. They merely follow their own cravings.

So also in the terrors of sin and death, I do not exchange death with life, and Christ with the devil, although in the midst of temptation it seems like this.