“Repentance deserveth Pardon.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
Proprio è a noi peccar sovente,
A voi perdonar sempre a chi si pente.
Canto XXXIII, stanza 114 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“Repentance deserveth Pardon.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
William Wallace (1270–1305) Scottish landowner and leader in the Wars for Scottish Independence
Statement at his trial, rejecting the assertion he was a traitor to Edward I of England (23 August 1305), as quoted in Lives of Scottish Worthies (1831) by Patrick Fraser Tytler, p. 279
Variant: I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.
Context: I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he never shall receive it. To the other points whereof I am accused, I freely confess them all. As Governor of my country I have been an enemy to its enemies; I have slain the English; I have mortally opposed the English King; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own. If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin; but it is not of Edward of England I shall ask pardon.
“No sin is unforgivable except the sin that is not repented of.”
Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896–1993) Russian monk, theologian and writer
Source: Saint Silouan the Athonite (1991), p. 83
Ted Haggard (1956) American minister
[Haggard, Ted, The Life Giving Church, Regal Books, Expanded edition (May 2001), p. 112, ISBN 0830726594]
Thomas Watson (1616–1686) English nonconformist preacher and author
The Doctrine of Repentance (1668)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Variant: We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
“As the oil is in the olive, so is the teshuvah, repentance, hidden within sin.”
Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian
Source: For The Sake of Heaven (1945), p. 44
“Tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in.”
Robert Herrick book Hesperides
"Corinna's Going A-Maying".
Hesperides (1648)