“If you confess your sins, you must confess them to God; we are but his witnesses.”
Ann Lee (1736–1784) English Shaker leader
The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875)
Source: Works of Thomas Brooks, pp.413-4
“If you confess your sins, you must confess them to God; we are but his witnesses.”
Ann Lee (1736–1784) English Shaker leader
The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875)
“Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it.”
Marguerite de Navarre book Heptaméron
Sixth Day, Novel LX (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“The truth is, not one of is innocent. We all have sins to confess.”
C.W. Gortner American writer
Source: The Confessions of Catherine de Medici
Ann Lee (1736–1784) English Shaker leader
The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875)
Context: When I confessed my sins, I labored to remember the time when and the place where I committed them. And when I had confessed them, I cried to God to know if my confession was accepted; and by crying to God continually I traveled out of my loss.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India
Harijan (20 October 1946); as quoted in The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts (1985)
1940s
“Some people confess guilt to claim credit for the sin.”
John Von Neumann (1903–1957) Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath
As quoted in John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More (2016) by Norman Macrae, p. 352 in response to Oppenheimer's 'destroyer of worlds' quote.
“When we sin, we think we are geniuses; when we confess, we know we are idiots.”
Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic
Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 42
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 433
Sunni Hadith
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian
No. 68.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)