Quotes about sin
page 9

“Scarce had the morning starre hid from the light
Heavens crimson canopie with stars bespangled,
But I began to rue th' unhappy sight
Of that faire boy that had my hart intangled;
Cursing the time, the place, the sense, the sin;
I came, I saw, I viewd, I slipped in.

If it be sinne to love a sweet-fac'd boy,
Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels
Dangle adowne his lovely cheekes with joy,
When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels;
If it be sinne to love a lovely lad,
Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule is sad.”

Richard Barnfield (1574–1627) English poet

The Teares of an Affectionate Shepheard Sicke for Love, or the Complaint of Daphnis for the Love of Ganimede. The Affectionate Shepheard http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19902 (1594)

Love, Sadness, Soul, Star

“What are the ingredients of the most creatively meaningful image of human existence that the mind can conceive? Remove human frailty--as grass, as a sigh, as dust, as moth-crushed--and the estimate becomes romantic. Remove grandeur--a little lower than God--and aspiration recedes. Remove sin-the tendency to miss the mark--and sentimentality threatens. Remove freedom--choose ye this day!--and responsibility goes by the board. Remove, finally, divine parentage and life becomes estranged, cut loose and adrift on a cold, indifferent sea. With all that has been discovered about human life in the intervening 2,500 years, it is difficult to find a flaw in this assessment.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

On the Torah's take on human existence.
The World's Religions (1991)

Life, God, Freedom, Grass

“With the Constitution, the law, and the politics on the side of doing his duty and securing our broken border, why does President Bush not act? What is paralyzing the White House? Answer: Political correctness, political cowardice, political opportunism, a sense of guilt for America's sins, and twin ideologies that have a grip on our elites not unlike a religious cult. The proud old boast, "Here, sir, the people rule!"”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

no longer applies. We no longer live in a truly democratic republic.
2010s, State of Emergency (2006)

People, Law, Sense, Housing

“There is a regrettable interpretation of the cross that has, unfortunately, infected the minds of many Christians. This is the view that the bloody sacrifice of the Son on the cross was “satisfying” to the Father, and appeasement of a God infinitely angry at sinful humanity. In this reading, the crucified Jesus is like a child hurled into the fiery mouth of a pagan divinity in order to assuage its wrath. But what ultimately refutes this twisted theology is the well-known passage from John’s Gospel: “God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son, that all who believe in him might have eternal life.” John reveals that it is not out of anger or vengeance or in a desire for retribution that the Father sends the Son, but precisely out of love. God the Father is not some pathetic divinity whose bruised personal honor needs to be restored; rather God is a parent who burns with compassion for his children who have wandered into danger.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Polishing the Diamonds https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/polishing-the-diamonds/5099/ (March 8, 2016)

Love, Life, God, Children

“4) It is a sin to waste the reader's time.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Niven's Laws, Niven's Laws For Writers

Time

“They suppose that Woman's Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sin.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

1780s, Annotations to Lavater (1788)

Love

“How great is your sin in rejecting Jesus Christ! You slight the glorious Person for whose coming God made such great preparation in such a series of wonderful providences from the beginning of the world, bringing to pass a thing before unknown, the union of the Divine nature with the human in one person. You have been guilty of slighting that great Saviour, who, after such preparation, actually accomplished the purchase of redemption, and who, after He had spent three or four and thirty years in poverty, labor, and contempt, in purchasing redemption, at last finished the purchase by closing His life under such extreme sufferings; and so by His death, and continuing for a time under the power of death, completed the whole. This is the Saviour you reject and despise. You make light of all the glory of His person, and of all the love of God the Father in sending Him into the world, and all His wonderful love appearing in the whole of His work.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 492.

Love, Life, Death, God

“Sin which men account small brings God's great wrath on men.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

Men, God

“If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

Quoted in * Perry says he believes non-Christians will go to hell; rivals pounce
Dallas Morning News
2006-11-06
Christy
Hoppe

Life, God, Hell, Christ

“politics without morality is close to sin”

Hamid Karzai (1957) President of Afghanistan

Verbatim Remarks by H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan at Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. http://afghanembassy.ca/public-affairs-afghanistan-embassy-canada-ottawa/speeches-afghanistan-embassy-canada-ottawa/content-folder/2006/articles/April-2006.html(April 2006) 2006

“We condemn those who affirm that a man once justified cannot sin. … As to the special privilege of the Virgin Mary, when they produce the celestial diploma we shall believe what they say.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

John Calvin, Antidote to the Canons of the Council of Trent, Canon 23. (1547)

“Surely Scripture is right when it makes the sin of sins that unbelief, which is at bottom nothing else than a refusal to take the cup of salvation. Surely no sharper grief can be inflicted upon the Spirit of God than when we leave His gifts neglected and unappropriated.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 607.

God

“As ravens rejoice over carrion, so infernal spirits exult over the soul that is dead in sin.”

Christian Scriver (1629–1693) German hymnwriter

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 561.

Soul, Dead

“What was right and true yesterday is wrong and false today. What was immoral and shameful — promiscuity, abortion, euthanasia, suicide — has become progressive and praiseworthy. Nietzsche called it the transvaluation of all values; the old virtues become sins, and the old sins become virtues.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2010s, The Death of the West (2002)

Suicide, Falseness

“Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex. As long as combat was desirable as the source of honor and glory, the knight had no wish to share it with the commoner, even for the sake of success.”

Barbara W. Tuchman book A Distant Mirror

Source: A Distant Mirror (1978), p. 577

Sex, Success

“Miriamele was dismayed by her own willful ignorance. How could she, with all her native good fortune, be so consumed with the few inconveniences that God or fate had put in her way? It was shameful.
She tried to tell Duke Isgrimnur something of her thoughts, but he would not let her slide too far into self-loathing.
“Each one of us has our own sorrows, Princess,” he said. “It’s no shame to take them to heart. The only sin is to forget that other folk have theirs, too—or to let pity for yourself slow your hand when someone needs help.””

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 21, “Answered Prayers” (p. 649).

God, Fate, Way, Help

“My profession often gets bad press for a variety of sins, both actual and imagined: arrogance, venality, insensitivity to moral issues about the use of knowledge, pandering to sources of funding with insufficient worry about attendant degradation of values. As an advocate for science, I plead “mildly guilty now and then” to all these charges. Scientists are human beings subject to all the foibles and temptations of ordinary life. Some of us are moral rocks; others are reeds. I like to think (though I have no proof) that we are better, on average, than members of many other callings on a variety of issues central to the practice of good science: willingness to alter received opinion in the face of uncomfortable data, dedication to discovering and publicizing our best and most honest account of nature's factuality, judgment of colleagues on the might of their ideas rather than the power of their positions.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

"The Razumovsky Duet", p. 270
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

Life, Imagination, Idea, Nature

“If thou art fighting against thy sins, so is God. On thy side is God who made all, and Christ who died for all and the Spirit who alone gives wisdom, purity, and nobleness.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 263.

Wisdom, God, Art, Christ

“A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (6)
Les Caractères (1688)

God, Health, Question

“In this Sight mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and then God brought merrily to my mind David, and others in the Old Law without number; and in the New Law He brought to my mind first Mary Magdalene, Peter and Paul, and those of Inde; and Saint John of Beverley; and others also without number: how they are known in the Church in earth with their sins, and it is to them no shame, but all is turned for them to worship. And therefore our courteous Lord sheweth for them here in part like as it is there in fulness: for there the token of sin is turned to worship.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 38

God, Law, Understanding, Parting

“Let us learn how the love of Christ, received into the heart, triumphs gradually but surely over all sin, transforms character, turning even its weakness into strength, and so, from the depths of transgression and the very gates of hell, raises men to God.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 398.

Love, Men, God, Hell

“The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 551

Memory

“God's mercy is a holy mercy, which knows how to pardon sin, not to protect it; it is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the presumptuous.”

Richard Reynolds (bishop) (1674–1743) Bishop of Lincoln

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 273.

God

“My father had served with great honor and courage in the Second World War. He fought for a country that was not only great, but good. It had its flaws and had some imperfections. It was the original sin of slavery which you know which we hadn't completed extirpated because we still had racial injustice in the 50s and 60s and 70s. We had only recently abolished, formally abolished segregation. So I was aware that uh, America had its flaws and defects in its history. But I also believed in the country and believed in its principles. That's the way I was brought up and so I was shocked when I found people who were just openly, vociferously anti-American, condemning not only America's sins but America itself, condemning its principles and pointing in some cases to communist regimes like Cuba as being superior.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2016, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

War, People, World, Way

“Western psychologists accuse religion of repressing the vital energy of man and rendering his life quite miserable as a result of the sense of guilt which especially obsesses the religious people and makes them imagine that all their actions are sinful and can only be expiated through abstention from enjoying the pleasures of life. Those psychologists add that Europe lived in the darkness of ignorance as long as it adhered to its religion but once it freed itself from the fetters of religion, its emotions were liberated and accordingly it achieved wonders in the field of production.”

Muhammad Qutb (1919–2014) Egyptian Islamist writer and scholar

Source: Islam: the Misunderstood Religion, Chapter 11, Islam and Sexual Repression, p. 207.

Life, People, Pleasure, Religion

“Y'all don't treat women fair
She read about herself in the bible
Believing she the reason sin is here”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

America
On Albums, Untitled (2008)

Women, Reading

“When I was fourteen or fifteen […] the Yom Kippur service ended in an unforgettable way, for Schechter, who always put great effort into the blowing of the shofar—he would go red in the face with exertion—produced a long, seemingly endless note of unearthly beauty, and then dropped dead before us on the bema, the raised platform where he would sing. I had the feeling that God had killed Schechter, sent a thunderbolt, stricken him. The shock of this for everyone was tempered by the reflection that if there was ever a moment in which a soul was pure, forgiven, relieved of all sin, it was at this moment, when the shofar was blown in conclusion of the fast […].”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 177

God, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?.
My family don't seem so familiar / And my enemies all know my name.
You better get on your knees and pray / Panic is on the way
My eyes are dead / My throat's like a black hole / And if there's a God / Would he give another chancer / An hour to sing for his soul?”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Gas Panic
Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000)

God, Family, Way, Soul

“O Thou Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, what Thou bearest in Thy blessed hands and feet I cannot bear; take it all away. Hide me in the depths of Thy suffering love, mold me to the image of Thy divine passion.”

Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 86.

Love, God, World, Suffering

“In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain (1940)

God, Forgiveness, Hell, Question

“Prosecution of the criminal and education of the ignorant are the remedies. It is fundamental that freedom is not to be secured by disobedience to law. Even the freedom of the slave depended on the supremacy of the Constitution. There is no mystery about this. They who sin are the servants of sin. They who break the laws are the slaves of their own kind. It is not for the advantage of others that the citizen is abjured to obey the laws, but for his own advantage. That what he claims a right to do to others, that must he admit others have a right to do to him. His obedience is his own protection. He is not submitting himself to the dictates of others, but responding to the requirements of his own nature.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Law and Order (1920)

Education, Law, Nature, Freedom

“She wondered how people would remember her. She had not made enough to spread her wealth around like Carnegie, to erase any sins that had attached to her name, she had failed, she had not reached the golden bough. The liberals would cheer her to death. They would light marijuana cigarettes and drive to their sushi restaurants and eat fresh food that had traveled eight thousand miles. They would spend all of supper complaining about people like her, and when they got home their houses would be cold and they’d press a button on a wall to get warm. The whole time complaining about big oil.”

Philipp Meyer (1974) American writer

Source: The Son (2013), p. 82

Death, People, Food, Travel

“To the degree that a man possesses a vivid ideal of the good life, submerges himself in the sea of human misery and endeavors to alleviate suffering, kindles imagination in hours of silence and by visions of beauty, and follows the noblest personality into the presence of a loving, suffering Father—to the extent that he lives meaningfully, he will be convinced of sin and cry aloud for deliverance.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

"Penitence and Social Progress" World Tomorrow 15 (May, 1932)

Love, Life, Beauty, Imagination

“Sin is anti-will to God's will; it sets itself to oppose preaching, prayer, and all the institutions of God.”

Ralph Venning (1621–1673) English minister

The Sinfulness of Sin

God

“His death is a revelation of the nature of God, and a pledge that God will stand by me until I am made one with him... It was a revelation of God’s reaction to human sin. To be hurt and hindered by it, but to go on loving, and go on loving, and go on loving, without reprisal or answering violence until men see what sin is and what sin does, and turn with loathing from that which has so grievously hurt the greatest Lover of the human soul... It is not what God once was, or Christ once did, that can save us, but what Christ once did is the sacrament and visible pledge to us of what He is and does for ever... He committed himself to the task of recovering all humanity to God, however long it might take, however arduous the way, however unrewarding the toil.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.120-123 [ellipsis added]

Love, Death, Men, God

“But I would like to think for a moment about a man who in the morning teaches his students that a false attribution of a Watteau drawing or an inaccurate transcription of a fourteenth-century epigraph is a sin against the spirit and in the afternoon or evening transmits to the agents of Soviet intelligence classified, perhaps vital information given to him in sworn trust by his countrymen and intimate colleagues. What are the sources of such scission? How does the spirit mask itself?”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Cleric of Treason," The New Yorker (1980-12-08).
George Steiner: A Reader (1984)

Intelligence, Thinking, Drawing, Falseness

“This thought had led to the fear that I might pick the wrong God to pray to. I thought that, because praying to the wrong God was expressly a sin, and because a merciful God might forgive me for forgetting to pray, it therefore followed that, even without knowing which one was the right one, my best chances lay in staying quiet and hoping for the best. That strategy worked in class when I didn’t know the answer, so I supposed it might work in the arena of theology, also.”

John C. Wright book Orphans of Chaos

Source: Orphans of Chaos (2005), Chapter 3, “The First of the Secrets” Section 8 (p. 48)

God, Fear, Hope, Forgiveness

“I've never known anyone who has fallen into sin and been successfully restored by the formal church structure. Nor have I ever seen a formal church structure wisely deal with sin, enabling ministry to continue without interruption.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, The Life Giving Church, Regal Books, Expanded edition (May 2001), p. 111, ISBN 0830726594]

“No elaboration of physical or moral accomplishment can atone for the sin of parasitism.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#116
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

“In 1843, after annexing the then-Indian village Miani of Sindh against orders, legend has it that British General Sir Charles Napier sent home a one word telegram, "Peccavi", taking use of its Latin meaning "I have sinned" and the heterograph "I have Sindh." This pun appeared under the title 'Foreign Affairs' in Punch magazine on 18 May 1844. The true author of the pun was, however, Englishwoman Catherine Winkworth, who submitted it to Punch, which then printed it as a factual report.”
Peccavi

Charles James Napier (1782–1853) Commander-in-Chief in British India

Misattributed

Home, Appearance

“Pleasant, the word that utters the Trinity;
Also pleasant, extreme penance for sin.
Pleasant, the summer of pleasantness;
Communion with the Lord, in the day of judgment.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Pleasant Things of Taliesin

Summer

“This little composition, which is, alas, the last mortal sin of my old age.”

Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Italian composer

Cette petite composition qui est, hélas, le dernier péché mortel de ma vieillesse.
Introductory note to the Petite Messe Solennelle. Translation from Justin Wintle (ed.) Makers of Nineteenth Century Culture (2002) vol. 2, p. 527.

Age

“There is absolutely no point in being healed in our bodies, then dying in our sins and spending an eternity in hell. It would be better to die of cancer and go to heaven because of that cancer, then to live in perfect health and end up in hell.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

More Than Just Comfort: An Answer to Cancer (c. 1979)

Health, Hell, Perfection

“Men have their choice in this world. They can be angels, or they may be demons. In the apocalyptic vision, John describes a war in heaven. You have only to strip that vision of its gorgeous Oriental drapery, divest it of its shining and celestial ornaments, clothe it in the simple and familiar language of common sense, and you will have before you the eternal conﬂict between right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and slavery, truth and falsehood, the glorious light of love, and the appalling darkness of human selﬁshness and sin. The human heart is a seat of constant war… Just what takes place in individual human hearts, often takes place between nations, and between individuals of the same nation.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

As quoted in Maurice S. Lee (2009), The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass. Cambridge University Press, p. 50; Thomson, Conyers & Dawson (2009). The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 84

Love, Men, War, Truth

“I have descended to the depths of suffering, and it seems to me that after that one cannot help being raised up. But I have spent the last three nights weeping. Pity! Pity! Remembrance is the true imperishable life... I should like to live my life over again, to record it, to admit my weaknesses; no, this is useless; I have sinned, I have suffered, I have atoned for it. I could write only a bad novel by relating what has been related a thousand times.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

Quote from Berthe's Morisot's letter, 1887 - after the death of her husband Eugène Manet
1881 - 1895

Life, Suffering, Time, Help

“I see that I have too much confined my thoughts to God, and that I ought to go directly to the Saviour's arms, and that I ought to believe, abominable as my sins have been, if they have once been pardoned, they form no partition between me and the heart of Christ.”

Edward Dorr Griffin (1770–1837) American academic administrator

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 99.

God, Heart, Christ

“The Rumsfeld-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U. S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

2000s, Welcome to the Big Darkness (2003)

War, Stupidity, World, Country

“I truly wish with all my heart that universal salvation were true. But to pretend that people are not sinful and in need of salvation would be as cruel and deceptive as pretending that somebody was healthy even though you knew that he had a fatal disease for which you knew the cure.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

People, Disease, Universe, Heart

“My friends, look to Christ, and not to yourselves. That is what is the matter with a great many sinners; instead of looking to Christ, they are looking at the bite of sin.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 391.

Christ

“Older children always sit down to paint or write after they have seen a picture or read a story that appeals to them, and attempt to create. So life ought to be a struggle of desire towards adventures whose nobility will fertilise the soul and lead to the conception of new, glorious things. To avoid the ordeal of emotion that leads to the conception is the impulse of death. Sterility is the deadly sin. Today so many of our activities are sterile. Our upper classes are impotent by reason of their soft living. Our lower classes have had their vitality sweated out of them by their filthy labours: they can only bear dead things.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Gospel According to Granville-Parker", in The Freewoman (7 March 1912); re-published in The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17 (1982), p. 21

Life, Death, Children, Soul

“If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, I will over yours—for charity covereth a multitude of sins. What many people call sin is not sin; I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 4:445 (7 November 1841)
1840s

God, People

“We all trying to get to where the suffering ends. In front of the Most High, being judged for our sins. Can't front for the Most High.”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

Mixtapes, Fahrenheit 1/15 Part I: The Truth Is Among Us (2006)

Suffering

“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others — that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Journal entry (30 October 1958, 6:30 am)
Working and Thinking on the Waterfront (1969)

“Do you believe in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? Do you believe that the atoning blood removes the guilt of sin from the sin-stained soul? Ask the medium that. I have been asking that question all over the world for forty years: if there is any Spiritualist under the stars who believes that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, and if I can find one who does, I am willing to apologize for all that I have said. I have never met one yet.”

A. C. Dixon (1854–1925) American pastor

Heresies Exposed by William C. Irvine (3rd Edition, 1921)

World, Soul, Star, Question

“Others, who have the common amount of charity and have not yet grown in grace to this extent, but are guided by their own reason, struggle and strive all day against their sins in order to acquire virtues. Like wrestlers, they are sometimes on top, and sometimes underneath. Such people are doing well. They acquire virtues through their own reason and will, but not because they love and delight in virtue, for they have to exert all of their energy to overcome their natural instincts in order to possess them. Consequently they never enjoy true peace or final victory. They will receive a great reward, but they are not yet sufficiently humble. They have not yet put themselves wholly into God's hands, because they do not yet see Him.”

Walter Hilton (1340–1396) English Augustinian mystic.

Book II, ch. 36 (p. 211)
The Ladder of Perfection (1494)

Love, God, People, Peace

“What terrible sins I have working for me. I suppose it's the wages.”

Peter Cook (1937–1995) British architect

Bedazzled (1967)

“If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

The Earth full of God's Goodness.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Death, God, World, Beauty

“You know, it used to be that American culture in general understood that we’re sinful, but not anymore. Which is why teaching the gospel, starting in Genesis, is important. Sin entered into the world through Adam, as described in Genesis. The problem is that we have Christian leaders compromising God’s clear Word in Genesis with evolution, millions of years, or both. If we cannot trust what God says in Genesis, we cannot trust the gospel. Sadly, years of such compromise has greatly weakened the church to now allow for increasing open attacks on those who teach the gospel. Those attacking the gospel are intent on imposing their religion of atheism on this generation of kids.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Children's Ministry accused of Psychologically Damaging Children" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/16/childrens-ministry-accused-of-psychologically-damaging-children/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 16, 2014) Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

God, World, Religion, Problem

“But hereof be assured, that all is not lawful nor just that is statute by civil laws; neither yet is everything sin before God, which ungodly persons allege to be treason.”

John Knox (1514–1572) Scottish clergyman, writer and historian

John Knox pastoral, as quoted in The Breakers of the Yoke: Sketches and Studies of the Men ... by J. S. MacIntosh, p. 303

God, Law, Personality

“[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Great Divorce

Source: The Great Divorce (1944–1945), Ch. 9

Death, Pleasure, Dreams, Suffering

“If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 153.

Christ

“Light views of sin give slight views of the sacrifice of Calvary, of the need for propitiation, and of the dread future penalty on willful wrong-doing.”

Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847–1929) English Baptist pastor and evangelist

The Way Into The Holiest (1893)

Penalty, Light, Future

“I did not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 8, p. 31

Passion

“The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas’s true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange—a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Gold Bug Variations", Originally published in Slate (Nov. 23, 1996)
The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From The Dismal Science (1998)

God, People, Imagination, Failure

“New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate.”

Harry Connick, Jr. (1967) American singer, conductor, pianist, actor, and composer

Sony press release, January 2007 http://www.sonybmg.com.au/news/details.do?newsId=20030829004111

Sex

“Such too was Moses, who rose up in great wrath to oppose those who sinned against God, but endured with meekness of spirit all slanders against himself.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

vol. 1, p. 17
Letters

God

“Angels are those beings who have been on an earth like this, and have passed through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. They have kept their first estate far enough to preserve themselves in the Priesthood. They did not so violate the law of the Priesthood and condemn themselves to the sin against the Holy Ghost as to be finally lost. They are not crowned with the celestial ones. They are persons who have lived upon an earth, but did not magnify the Priesthood in that high degree that many others have done who have become Gods, even the sons of God. Human beings that pertain to this world, who do not magnify or are not capable of magnifying their high calling in the Priesthood and receive crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives, will also, when they again receive their bodies, become angels and will receive a glory. They are single, without families or kingdoms to reign over. All the difference between men and angels is, men are passing through the day of trial that angels have already passed through.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 9:102 (January 5, 1860)
1860s

Men, God, World, Family

“A person who lives in a place where the norms of behavior are evil and the inhabitants do not follow the straight path should move to a place where the people are righteous and follow the ways of the good.If all the places with which he is familiar and of which he hears reports follow improper paths, as in our times, … he should remain alone in seclusion. …If they are wicked and sinful and do not allow him to reside there unless he mingle with them and follow their evil behavior, he should go out to caves, thickets, and deserts.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

Source: Hilkhot De'ot (Laws Concerning Character Traits), Chapter 6, Section 1

People, Way, Behavior, Evil

“I will take his secret to the grave, telling people along the way. Betrayal is no sin if it is whimsical.”

Tom Stoppard The Invention of Love

Housman, Act I
The Invention of Love (1997)

People, Secret, Way, Betrayal

“According to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided'. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however 'objectively disordered' and homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity'.In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Doctrinal document Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, July 31, 2003
2003

Women, Men, Marriage, Law

“Of four things therefore it is His will that we have knowing: the first is, that He is our Ground from whom we have all our life and our being. The second is, that He keepeth us mightily and mercifully in the time that we are in our sin and among all our enemies, that are full fell upon us; and so much we are in the more peril for we give them occasion thereto, and know not our own need. The third is, how courteously He keepeth us, and maketh us to know that we go amiss. The fourth is, how steadfastly He abideth us and changeth no regard: for He willeth that we be turned, and oned to Him in love as He is to us.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 78

Love, Life, Time

“Most of us tend to think of Noah as much less advanced than we are. Actually, the opposite would be true. We've had 4,500 more years of the effects of sin and the Curse on our brains. I'm convinced Noah would have had the intelligence necessary to devise methods of feeding and caring [for the animals on the ark] that would put today's farmer's to shame. If farmers today have methods that could easily allow eight people to look after 16,000 animals - I've no doubt Noah could do much more!”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

People, Intelligence, Thinking, Animals

“The reason I'm so bitter and, as I said, in anguish, nowadays, or one of the reasons, is that everybody's begun to lie and because they lie they assume that I lie too: they overlook the fact that I remember very well many things (of course I've forgotten some), but I do believe that lying is a sin, unless it's an innocent lie based on lack of memory, certainly the giving of false evidence and being a false witness is a mortal sin, but what I mean is, insofar as lying has become so prevalent in the world today (thanks to Marxian Dialectal propaganda and Comintern techniques among other causes) that, when a man tells the truth, everybody, looking in the mirror and seeing a liar, assumes that the truth-teller is lying too.”

Jack Kerouac book Vanity of Duluoz

Vanity of Duluoz (1968)

Truth, Lie, World, Lying

“Listeners should rejoice right now, because there are believers all across your listening area that are praying now. And I would say that if you can't attend the rally, you can pray. And God calls us to fall on our faces and our knees and cry out to Him and confess our sins. And I would just ask your listeners to do that now. Cry out to a Holy God. He wants to hear us, He will hear us if we will confess our sins and cry out to Him. Our children are worth it and obedience to God demands it.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Prophetic Views Behind The News
KKMS 980-AM
Radio
2004-03-06, hosted by Jan Markell
2000s

God, Children, Cry

“If blasted hopes and ruin'd name,
And all the venom Love lends Shame —
The violent death, and rabble eye,
To look upon its agony;
If these are not enough to win
A pardon for Earth's deadliest sin,
Words will not, cannot! — never dare
Tell me it may be won by prayer!
The coward prayer, the coward tear,
Not from remorse wrung, but from fear!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Love, Death, Fear, Hope

“There is much to weep about. But it is a sin to permit our tears to drown out our song of gratitude and joy in the gift of creation.”

Richard John Neuhaus (1936–2009) Canadian-American Christian writer

"Wild Moralists in the Animal Kingdom" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/04/wild-moralists-in-the-animal-kingdom, in First Things (April 2003).

Tear, Joy, Gratitude

“All this of Liberty and Equality, Electoral suffrages, Independence and so forth, we will take, therefore, to be a temporary phenomenon, by no means a final one. Though likely to last a long time, with sad enough embroilments for us all, we must welcome it, as the penalty of sins that are past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are coming.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest

Sadness, Penalty, Time, Past

“The following anecdote is related of Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish. He was greatly enamoured of a Turkish slave girl in his harem, whom he had purchased, and sought her caresses, but was always unable to achieve his object. One day he was seated, having his head anointed with some perfumed oil by the hands of the same slave girl, when he felt some tears fall on his head. On looking up, he found that she was weeping. He inquired of her the cause. She replied, “Once I had a brother who had such a bald place on his head as you have, and it reminds me of him.” On making further inquiries it was found that the slave girl was his own sister. They had both been sold as slaves, in their early childhood, by their half-brothers; and thus had Almighty God saved him from committing a great sin. Badaoni states in his work, “I heard this story myself, from the emperor Akbar’s own lips, and the monarch stated that this anecdote had been orally traced to Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban himself.””

Iltutmish (1210–1236) Sultan of Mamluk Sultanate

Minhaj, 506, 526n. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

God, Girl, Sister, Tear

“The convulsive hold which Mary to this day maintains over human imagination,— as you can see at Lourdes,— was due much less to her power of saving soul or body than to her sympathy with people who suffered under law,— divine or human,— justly or unjustly, by accident or design, by decree of God or by guile of Devil. She cared not a straw for conventional morality, and she had no notion of letting her friends be punished, to the tenth or any other generation, for the sins of their ancestors or the peccadillos of Eve.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

God, People, Law, Soul

“It is better to live poorly upon the fruits of God’s goodness than live plentifully upon the products of our own sin.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

In a sermon titled 'Our Condition' - "Indebted Ghanaian Saved From Prostitution By TB Joshua" http://www.theghanaianjournal.com/2009/08/04/indebted-ghanaian-saved-from-prostitution-by-tb-joshua/ The Ghanaian Journal (August 4 2009)

God

“My young friend who was taught that she was so sinful the only way an angry God could be persuaded to forgive her was by Jesus dying for her, was also taught that part of the joy of the blessed in heaven is watching the torture of the damned in hell. A strange idea of joy. But it is a belief limited not only to the more rigid sects. I know a number of highly sensitive and intelligent people in my own communion who consider as a heresy my faith that God's loving concern for his creation will outlast all our willfulness and pride. No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love… Origen held this belief and was ultimately pronounced a heretic. Gregory of Nyssa, affirming the same loving God, was made a saint. Some people feel it to be heresy because it appears to deny man his freedom to refuse to love God. But this, it seems to me, denies God his freedom to go on loving us beyond all our willfulness and pride. If the Word of God is the light of the world, and this light cannot be put out, ultimately it will brighten all the dark corners of our hearts and we will be able to see, and seeing, will be given the grace to respond with love — and of our own free will.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Love, God, People, World

“God wanted a blood sacrifice. God had shed innocent blood to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. Cain knew God wanted a bloody animal sacrifice, a lamb to be precise. Cain thought that he could get favor with God by bringing the work of his own hands.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

God, Animals

“God brought to my mind that I should sin. And for pleasance that I had in beholding of Him, I attended not readily to that shewing; and our Lord full mercifully abode, and gave me grace to attend. And this shewing I took singularly to myself; but by all the gracious comfort that followeth, as ye shall see, I was learned to take it for all mine even-Christians: all in general and nothing in special: though our Lord shewed me that I should sin, by me alone is understood all.
And therein I conceived a soft dread. And to this our Lord answered: I keep thee full surely. This word was said with more love and secureness and spiritual keeping than I can or may tell.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 37

Love, God, Learning

“Let that ancient dragon, Cadalus, take note. Let this disturber of the Church, this destroyer of apostolic discipline, this enemy of man’s salvation understand. Let him beware, I say, this root of all sin, this herald of the devil, this apostle of Antichrist. And what else shall I call him? He is the arrow drawn from the quiver of Satan, the rod of the Assyrian, the son Belial, "the son of perdition, who rises in his pride against every god, so called, ever object of men’s worship" (2 Thess. 2:3-4), the whirlpool of lust, the shipwreck of chastity, the disgrace of Christianity, the ignominy of bishops, the progeny of vipers, the stench or the world, the filth of the ages, the shame of the universe. Still more epithets for Cadalus can be added, a list of darksome names: slippery snake, a twisting serpent, the dung of humanity, the latrine of crime, the dregs of vice, the abomination of heaven the expulsion from paradise, the fodder of hell, the stubble of eternal fire.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 120:13. Damian to young King Henry IV, A. D. 1065 or 1066, wherein Damian exhorts Henry to use his sword against the disturber of the Church’s peace, Cadalus, the bishop of Parma, the antipope Honorius II (d. 1072): The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, 1998, Letters 91-120, Owen J. Blum, Irven Michael Resnick, trs., Catholic University of America Press, ISBN 0813208165 ISBN 9780813208169, vol. 5, pp. 393-394. http://books.google.com/books?id=Vlspdtjmhd4C&pg=PA393&dq=%22Let+that+ancient+dragon,+Cadalus,+take+note%22&hl=en&ei=QVpiTIjeIIG88gaFq-SVCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Let%20that%20ancient%20dragon%2C%20Cadalus%2C%20take%20note%22&f=false

Men, God, Age, World

“But now we come upon another objection, which I judge will be the last you can raise. You will say, I suspect, that this world of freedom, self-equipped for sin, is indeed a world which "lieth in wickedness," that in truth there is no real hope of good in it: it is a world of inherent and inexpugnable wrong, and not only damnable, but in fact already damned.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.372

Truth, World, Hope, Freedom

“They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on him— that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight for ever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Written in 1723; from The Works of President Edwards, vol. I, ed. Sereno B. Dwight, 1830.
The young woman described here was Sarah Pierrepont, who became Edwards' wife in 1727.

Love, God, Pain, Pleasure

“The Parliament of Toulouse burned 400 witches at one time. Four hundred women at one hour on the public square, dying the horrid death of fire for a crime which never existed save in the imagination of those persecutors and which grew in their imagination from a false belief in woman’s extraordinary wickedness, based upon a false theory as to original sin.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) American abolitionist, writer

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), p. 228

Death, Women, Imagination, Time

“The time has been in Israel under the law of God, the celestial law, or that which pertains to the celestial law, for it is one of the laws of that kingdom where our Father dwells, that if a man was found guilty of adultery, he must have his blood shed, and that is near at hand. But now I say, in the name of the Lord, that if this people will sin no more, but faithfully live their religion, their sins will be forgiven them without taking life.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 4:219 (Feb. 8, 1857)
1850s

Life, God, People, Religion

“If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist

"Summer in Algiers" http://books.google.com/books?id=N0bNUqDVKJgC&q=%22If+there+is+a+sin+against+life+it+consists+perhaps+not+so+much+in+despairing+of+life+as+in+hoping+for+another+life+and+in+eluding+the+implacable+grandeur+of+this+life%22&pg=PA153#v=onepage, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (1955)

Life, Hope, Despair

“The true source of freedom is found in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe it is he who fully discloses the human potential for virtue and goodness, and it is he who liberates us from sin and darkness.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2008, Inter-religious Meeting (17 July 2008)

Freedom, Personality

“My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand — Calvary.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 173.

Death, Fear

“Sin is a viper that does always kill where it is not killed.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Hypocrite Detected, Anatomized

“Well, despite what many gay “marriage” activists say, having two mummies or two daddies does not replace God’s design of one mum and one dad. God designed marriage—for one man and one woman—from the very beginning and blessed this union and said, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). This is God’s design for the family! And since God is the all-wise, all-knowing Creator, what He designed is obviously the only true way for us, not what sinful, fallible human beings try to make. Of course, no family is perfect—we live in a fallen world that is groaning from sin—but we are not at liberty to change the design for marriage and family that was given to us by our Creator. When we do, disaster is around the corner. I encourage you to be bold in standing on God’s Word and refusing to compromise with man’s ideas about what a marriage or a family should look like. We need to unashamedly uphold the design given to us by our Creator.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Gay “Marriage”—Tragic for America’s Children https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2015/07/13/gay-marriage-tragic-americas-children/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 13, 2015) Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

God, Marriage, World, Family

“So as you may see in Daniel and his companions, that would rather choose to burn, and be cast to the lions—than they would bow to the idol which Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When this 'slight offense', in the world's account, and a hot fiery furnace stood in competition, that they must either fall into sin, or be cast into the fiery furnace—such was their tenderness of the honor and glory of God, and their hatred and indignation against sin, that they would rather burn than sin!”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

God, World

“Ah, souls, you can easily sin as the saints—but can you repent with the saints? Many can sin with David and Peter, that cannot repent with David and Peter—and so must perish forever!”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

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Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

Soul

“You see, Adam had a perfect brain. We don't, because our brain has suffered from thousands of years of sin and the curse. Frankly, we're nowhere near as intelligent as Adam was.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

Intelligence, Suffering, Perfection

“It amazes me that anyone would dare point to Jesus Christ in moral judgement. You had better have clean hands and a pure heart before you point a finger at the Son of God… Jesus never sinned once, in thought, word, or in deed. He never lied, stole, hated, lusted, coveted, murdered, or dishonoured his parents. Let's now turn the mirror back on you. When was the last time you burned with unlawfully sexual fantasies? You don't need to reply to that. God knows the answer… So take a little advice from a fellow sinner - stop pointing your sin-stained finger at perfection, and instead look at your own self-righteous and duplicitous heart, before it's too late.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God, Hate, Parent, Time

“Nothing, then, would prevent him henceforth from living his life, a purely secular life, according to his nature and his habits, without having to ask himself at every moment whether what he had done was displeasing to God or not. And since he was no longer the sinner whose life, as soon as he acted by his own powers, was but sin, he would be able to enumerate separately the sins which he had committed on a particular occasion.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 120

Life, God, Nature

“It may take either of two forms, according as the sinking into sense directly involves only the violation of the spirit's own self-reverence or the graver assault upon the sacredness of others. In either case it is dishonour of God. The risk of it lies in the nature of our being, goes back to the conditions of our existence, of our self-definition in freedom; is constituent in our freedom as this is defined against the freedom of God. This risk is therefore "original" in a sense even deeper than that in which traditional theology makes sin to be original,”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.368-9

God, Nature, Sense, Freedom

“Intolerance is the besetting sin of moral fervour.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: 1930s, Adventures of Ideas (1933), p. 63, Ch. 4 http://books.google.com/books?id=UZeJuLvNq80C&q=&quot;Intolerance+is+the+besetting+sin+of+moral+fervour&quot;&pg=PA50#v=onepage

Quotes about sin page 9

Quotes about sin
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