“It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a charm to any character, and so our struggle with them dies away.”

“We know little of the lives of others, but we are apt to think that other people understand our own very well, including our good deeds if we have done any, and we expect full measure of credit for these, and the utmost allowance of charity for our sins. In other words we desire our neighbour to combine a power of forgiveness almost divine with a capacity for flattery more than parasitic.”

“Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.”

“The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands”

“Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?”

“The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any scientific fact. The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so–for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all–nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.”

“It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts.”

“…we all lie to ourselves; we tell our own selves more lies than we ever do other people.”

“If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.”

“We may allow the idea of The Origin Sin to endlessly haunt our minds, but we are well ensured that it is not our concern.”