My Autobiography (1964)
Context: Friends have asked how I came to engender this American antagonism. My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a Communist I refused to fall in line by hating them.
Secondly, I was opposed to the Committee on Un-American Activities — a dishonest phrase to begin with, elastic enough to wrap around the throat and strangle the voice of any American citizen whose honest opinion is a minority of one.
Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Rebel's Guide to Joy http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/rebels-guide-to-joy/the-rebels-guide-to-joy.
Journal Intime (1882), Quotes used in the Introduction by Ward
Context: There is no repose for the mind except in the absolute; for feeling except in the infinite; for the soul except in the divine. Nothing finite is true, is interesting, is worthy to fix my attention. All that is particular is exclusive, and all that is exclusive repels me. There is nothing non-exclusive but the All; my end is communion with Being through the whole of Being.
“It is a sign of non love that is to say a sin, to form a finished image of ones neighbors.”
I'm not Stiller (1955)
“Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me.”
Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
“The only sin is the sin of being born.”
As quoted in "Samuel Beckett Talks About Beckett" by John Gruen, in Vogue, (December 1969), p. 210
Comparable to "The tragic figure represents the expiation of original sin, of the original and eternal sin of him and all his 'soci malorum,' the sin of having been born. 'Pues el delito mayor / Del hombre es haber nacido.'" from his essay Proust, quoting Pedro Calderón de la Barca's La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream).
Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
As quoted inThe A-V Magazine Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 18, and The Extended Circle : A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 75; this has been cited to "Harper's Magazine (1890)" but no occurence prior to the 1981 appearance has been located.
Disputed
