"As long as we live in this world we cannot be without tribulation and temptation. Hence it is written in Job: 'The life of man upon earth is a warfare.' (Job 7:1)."
"Yet temptations are often very profitable to a man, although they be troublesome and grievous, for in them a man is humbled, purified, and instructed. All the saints have passed through many tribulations and temptations, and have profited by them; and they who could not support temptations have become reprobates, and fallen away."
"A man is never entirely secure from temptations as long as he lives, because we have within us the source of temptation, having been born in concupiscence...Many seek to fly temptations, and fall more grievously into them. By flight alone we cannot overcome; but by patience and true humility we are made stronger than our enemies. He who only declines them outwardly, and does not pluck out the root, will profit little; nay, temptations will sooner return to him, and he will find himself in worse condition."
"Inconstancy of mind, and small confidence in God, is the beginning of all evil temptations. For a ship without a rudder is tossed to and fro by the waves, so the man who is remiss, and who quits his resolution, is many ways tempted. Fire tries iron, and temptation tries a just man...However, we must be watchful, especially in the beginning of temptation, because then the enemy is easier overcome, if he is not suffered to come in at all at the door of the soul, but it is kept out and resisted at his first knock...For first a bare thought comes to the mind; then a strong imagination; afterwards delight, and evil motion and consent. And thus, by little and little, the wicked enemy gets full entrance, when he is not resisted in the beginning. And the longer a man is negligent in resisting, so much the weaker does he daily become in himself, and the enemy becomes stronger against him."
"We must not, therefore, despair when we are tempted, but pray to God with so much the more fervour that He may vouchsafe to help us in all tribulations; who, no doubt, according to the saying of St. Paul, will 'make such issue with the temptation, that you may be able to bear it' (7 Cor. 10:13). Let us, therefore, humble our souls under the hand of God in all temptations and tribulations: for the humble in spirit He will save and exalt."
from The Imitation of Christ, Book I by Thomas a Kempis
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