We constantly pass up the rich and beautiful and ennobling experiences and seek out the tawdry, the cheap, and the degrading. These are the works of the devil, and they flourish on every side!

If you are not careful you will find yourself actually in the employ of the devil. He is powerful, slick, crafty, wily, and subtle.

Our Father and our God, I continually place my faith in You and Your omnipotence. Please help me always to be on my guard against Satan and his demons who want to overcome me. Send Your mighty angels to stand between the demons and me, for I know I am no match for them alone. Rescue me, Father, through the power of the blood of Jesus and in the power of Your Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Prayer is the most powerful weapon we have in our spiritual arsenal to stand against the world's greatest enemy, the one who presents himself as an angel of light [2 Corinthians 11:14].

The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil.

Notwithstanding, in how many most petty and contemptible things is our curiosity daily tempted, and how often we give way, who can recount?

Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, and wallowed in the mire thereof, as if in a bed of spices and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the faster to its very centre, the invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, for that I was easy to be seduced.

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Every temptation is an offer to doubt God's love and wisdom.

As for Doing-good...I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

I will not through humility become the devil's attorney

No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, [...] compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?