“Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.”
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Robert A. Heinlein557
American science fiction author 1907–1988Related quotes
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author
Book II, ch. 3 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
“All other sins are open,
Usura alone not understood.”
Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic
Addendum for C
Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII
“All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin…”
Canto I, line 189
Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: For his Religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect, whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetick,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick.
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to:
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow:
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin...
Thomas Watson (1616–1686) English nonconformist preacher and author
"Christ The Redeemer" in A Body of Divinity http://www.fivesolas.com/watson/redeemer.htm (1692).
“What harms no other is not sin.”
Mark Rosenfelder American language inventor
A saying in Cuzeian theism http://www.zompist.com/cuzeian.htm#Responsibility <br class="br">Fictional sayings