quotations about sin
But let me tell ya, spend every day living only for yourself, every day indulging in little sins that aren't that big of a deal, and one day I may be showing you the ropes in hell. Amen.
VICTORIA SCOTT
The Collector
There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Young Goodman Brown
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
My own sin
will not hinder the working
of God's goodness.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Meditations with Julian of Norwich
Sin, by its deadly infusions into the soul of man, wastes and eats out the innate vigor of the soul, and casts it into such a deep lethargy, as that it is not able to recover itself.
JOHN SMITH
Select Discourses
There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the evening or at the feast at midnight when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
I don't remember ever being see-saw, when I'd made my mind up that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' bad workmanship--you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow creatures worse off instead o' better.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
How fair, to sinless Adam, Eden smiled!
But sin brought tears, and Eden was wild!
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Constance; Or, The Portrait
A sinner is an incendiary and sets the world on fire.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
In my judgment, such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more by the absence of appetite, than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, February 22, 1842
Past sins, if you repent of them, whiten you. They made a great psalmist out of David, a faithful believer out of the prostitute Rahab, a zealous apostle out of the persecutor Saul. I have been a loved preacher and writer with a particular vocation. My sermons and books would not have had the same quality without my past of anarchy, vice, and violent atheism.
RICHARD WURMBRAND
If Prison Walls Could Speak
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.
THOMAS MERTON
No Man Is an Island
By our sinful falls -- the powers of the soul are weakened; the strength of grace is decayed; our evidences for heaven are blotted; fears and doubts in the soul are raised (will God once more pardon this scarlet sin, and show mercy to this wretched soul?); the corruptions in the heart are more advantaged and confirmed; and the conscience of a man after falls is the more enraged or the more benumbed.
THOMAS BROOKS
Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Aphorisms
Too often, we say we are defeated by this or that sin. No, we are not defeated. We are simply disobedient. It might be good if we stop using the terms victory and defeat to describe our progress in holiness. Rather, we should use the terms obedience and disobedience. When I say I am defeated by some sin, I am unconsciously slipping out from under my responsibility. I am saying something outside of me has defeated me. But when I say I am disobedient, that places the responsibility for my sin squarely on me. We may in fact be defeated, but the reason we are defeated is because we have chosen to disobey.
JERRY BRIDGES
The Pursuit of Holiness
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
Sin is like fire in that it will never die out while it is supplied with suitable fuel; unpardoned by grace, it will be its own fuel, and burn forever.
JOHN BATE
Six Thousand Illustrations of Moral and Religious Truths
All the sinners, all who are
in torment are my brothers and sisters.
Who is there in this world of
sin, male or female, who has not committed sin?
Let alone us: Those who are
said to be the saviours of
sinners are themselves sullied of sin.
KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM
"Sin", Rebel and Other Poems
Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Survivor
'Tis not for us to warn a wilful sinner;
We stay him not, but let him run his course,
Till by misfortunes rous'd, his conscience wakes,
And prompts him to appease th' offended gods.
ARISTOPHANES
The Clouds