a49e5ca
|
Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.
|
|
freedom
sin
|
John Green |
1c2f430
|
Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
|
|
wisdom
sin
|
Harper Lee |
7d8b7f5
|
Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?
|
|
temptation
sin
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
aef99ea
|
"Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '.
|
|
relationships
depression
morality
happiness
depression-humor
the-key-to-happiness
oscar-wilde
marriage-advice
sins
self-pity
narcissism
self-improvement
pride
vice
self-help
sin
|
Stephen Fry |
2fb6728
|
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
|
|
temptation
repentance
sin
|
George Eliot |
5e37eed
|
And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
|
|
people
sin
|
Terry Pratchett |
c347137
|
"What is sin? It is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised. The truth of God not sought. The wisdom of God not esteemed. The beauty of God not treasured. The goodness of God not savored. The faithfulness of God not trusted. The commandments of God not obeyed. The justice of God not respected. The wrath of God not feared. The grace of God not cherished. The presence of God not prized.
|
|
god
what-is-sin
sin
|
John Piper |
3baf948
|
He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed he decided to append an eighth, regret.
|
|
war
south
sin
|
Charles Frazier |
0b2fae0
|
Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.
|
|
gluttony
sin
|
Victor Hugo |
a241c09
|
Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles & smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun & he's guilty. And all men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors & smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others & look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt & sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it & sometimes break in two. I've known a few. You work twice as hard to be a farmer as to be his hog. I suppose it's thinking about trying to be good makes the crack run up the wall one night. A man with high standards, too, the least hair falls on him sometimes wilts his spine. He can't let himself alone, won't let himself off the hook if he falls just a breath from grace.
|
|
man
sty
pig
sin
|
Ray Bradbury |
b30bf1f
|
We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.
|
|
christianity
jesus
spirituality
god
love
philosophy
inspirational
excess-love
saved-souls
the-cross
jesus-shock
salvation
cross
saved
theology
christ
sin
|
Peter Kreeft |
11d734d
|
Anyone who is having troubles should pray. Anyone who is happy should sing praises. Anyone who is sick should call the church's elders. They should pray for and pour oil on the person in the name of the Lord. And the prayer that is said with faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will heal that person. And if the person has sinned, the sins will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so God can heal you. When a believing person prays, great things happen. (James 5:13-16)
|
|
happy
prayer
faith
inspiration
spirituality
heal
healing
troubles
miracles
pray
sing
sin
|
Anonymous |
702df23
|
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
|
|
love
rural-life
john-watson
countryside
vile
sherlock-holmes
experience
smiling
beautiful
london
sin
|
Arthur Conan Doyle |
1f3b738
|
I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.
|
|
responsibility
religion
scapegoating
immorality
forgiveness
redemption
sin
|
Christopher Hitchens |
0127d23
|
The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.
|
|
gospel
humility
pride
sin
|
Timothy Keller |
adef29a
|
How often the priest had heard the same confession--Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.
|
|
sacrifice
death
god
glory
corruption
vice
evil
sin
|
Graham Greene |
9e9928d
|
Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: 'I am Who am.' The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: 'I am who am not.' Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.
|
|
the-enemy
the-devil
satan
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
1fef315
|
But I'm a bad priest, you see. I know--from experience--how much beauty Satan carried down with him when he fell. Nobody ever said the fallen angels were the ugly ones. Oh, no, they were just as quick and light and . . .
|
|
beauty
male-beauty
sin
|
Graham Greene |
dda68f1
|
Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.
|
|
heroes
humanity
love
robert-cormier
psychology
sin
|
Robert Cormier |
546ba10
|
Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?
|
|
sinners
redemption
sin
|
Donna Tartt |
546c324
|
Grace abounds in contemporary movies, books, novels, films and music. If God is not in the whirlwind, He may be in a Woody Allen film, or a Bruce Springsteen concert. Most people understand imagery and symbol better than doctrine and dogma. Images touch hearts and awaken imaginations. One theologian suggested that Springsteen's 'Tunnel of Love' album, in which he symbolically sings of sin, death, despair and redemption, is more important for Catholics than the Pope's last visit when he spoke of morality only in doctrinal propositions.
|
|
music
redemption
sin
|
Brennan Manning |
04a9369
|
For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgement of sin as a condition for membership.
|
|
sin
|
R.C. Sproul |
452bfd3
|
Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today -- gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious vying with his neighbor? I am certain this is not a vain hope and that the day will come soon.
|
|
hope
good-deeds
nobility-of-spirit
gluttony
mercy
values
sin
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
9f0d14e
|
If you don't delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead. You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don't know God. You don't love God. You're out of touch with God. You're asleep to his character.
|
|
holiness
gospel
sin
|
R.C. Sproul |
3c9446a
|
Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone.
|
|
virtue
ice
forgiveness
sin
|
William Shakespeare |
3f5eb4c
|
The world is evil only when you become its slave.
|
|
sin
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
cab7a3a
|
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
|
|
discipleship
sin
|
Sinclair Lewis |
1edcec3
|
Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
|
|
hearing
sin
|
William Shakespeare |
c4eb9e7
|
We want to be saved from our misery, but not from our sin. We want to sin without misery, just as the prodigal son wanted inheritance without the father. The foremost spiritual law of the physical universe is that this hope can never be realized. Sin always accompanies misery. There is no victimless crime, and all creation is subject to decay because of humanity's rebellion from God.
|
|
gospel
justice
sin
|
R.C. Sproul |
2d559c8
|
I've never seen such a bunch of apple-eaters.
|
|
apple
teddy
sin
|
J.D. Salinger |
c60e5a5
|
If I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation
|
|
love
sin
|
Anne Brontë |
ddf070f
|
"I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone recieved the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead." Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise... There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now?" How can we go on without him?" In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, mo matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror....we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world."
|
|
integrity
man
wealth
east-vs-west
lee-atwater
narcissism-epidemic
salvation-from-jesus
salvation-in-death
sin-and-salvation
sociopaths-and-psychopaths
the-wealthy
the-devil
sociopathy
sinners
the-rich
occupy-wall-street
sociopaths
wealth-and-virtues
steve-jobs
salvation
narcissism
sin
|
John Steinbeck |
73a7e61
|
But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. However, the transgression wasn't making love without the sanction of marriage. It was that for the first time in her life, Katie had put herself first. Put her own wants and needs above everything and everyone else.
|
|
marriage
had-known
saction
transgression
without-marriage
first-time
everyone
needs
making-love
wants
moment
lie
everything
sin
|
Jodi Picoult |
0e51f9f
|
What's all this about sin, eh?' 'That,' I said, very sick. 'Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music.' And then I was really sick and they had to bring a bowl that was in the shape of like a kidney. 'Music,' said Dr. Brodsky, like musing. 'So you're keen on music. I know nothing about it myself. It's a useful emotional heightener, that's all I know. Well, well. What do you think about that, eh, Branom?' 'It can't be helped,' said Dr. Branom. 'Each man kills the thing he loves...
|
|
reason
sin
|
Anthony Burgess |
0f20c2f
|
She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell. Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it. And it's delicious.
|
|
forbidden-fruit
garden-of-eden
sin
|
Orson Scott Card |
33f2ad6
|
By definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange - meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is all about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we find evil rather attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.
|
|
good
morality
moral-compass
morals
evil
sin
|
Anthony Burgess |
8044e49
|
In a fallen world marked by human depravity and deep-seated sin, in a world where Hitler and Stalin had recruited millions of followers to commit mass murder, love must harness power and seek justice in order to have moral meaning. Love without power remained impotent, and power without love was bankrupt.
|
|
humanity
love
moral-meaning
followers
mass-murder
impotence
stalin
hitler
power
sin
|
Timothy B. Tyson |
64abfa1
|
Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. God's thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. God's purpose for redemption is glory, glory, glory.
|
|
sanctification
sin
|
Watchman Nee |
b9e2171
|
When I was a young man and very well thought of, I couldn't ask aught that the ladies denied. I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins, And I never spoke love but I knew that I lied. But I said to myself, 'Ah, they none of them know The secret I shelter and savor and save I wait for the one who will see through my seeming, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave.' The years drifted over like clouds in the heavens; The ladies went by me like snow on the wind. I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled, And I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned. But I said to myself, 'Ah, they none of them see There's part of me pure as the whisk of a wave. My lady is late but she'll find I've been faithful, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave.' At last came a lady both knowing and tender, Saying, 'you're not at all what they take you to be.' I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking, And she swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea. And I say to myself when there's time for a word, As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved, 'Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.
|
|
destructiveness
lament
vice
sin
habit
|
Peter S. Beagle |
016ebc2
|
"Fear is the original sin," suddenly said a still, small voice away back--back--back of Valancy's consciousness. "Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something." Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice."
|
|
fear
overcoming-fear
sin
|
L.M. Montgomery |
f09afcb
|
"The woman I loved died because I did not love her enough - what greater sin is there than that?" (Uncle Chaim and Aunt Fifke and the Angel)"
|
|
shame
sin
|
Peter S. Beagle |
c206f4c
|
Now they are lovers. The first, wild courses are ended. They have founded their domain. A satanic happiness follows.
|
|
sex
love
knowing
sin
|
James Salter |
9311f22
|
the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.
|
|
sin
|
Oscar Wilde |
9df7f29
|
"There is no sin unless through a man's own will, and hence the reward when we do right things also of our own will." ( )"
|
|
self-determination
salvation
sin
|
St. Augustine of Hippo |
356fcd9
|
Smugness is the Great Catholic Sin.
|
|
smugness
pride
sin
|
Flannery O'Connor |
33db5ad
|
...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.
|
|
disease
prison
sin
|
G.K. Chesterton |
51ec0f9
|
The English judged a person so that they'd be justified in casting her out. The Amish judged a person so that they'd be justified in welcoming her back. Where I'm from, if someone is accused of sinning, it's not so that others can place blame. It's so that the person can make amends and move on.
|
|
society
forgiveness
sin
|
Jodi Picoult |
6a9d7e5
|
Maybe the Good Friday story is about how God would rather die than be in our sin-accounting business anymore.
|
|
good-friday
sin
|
Nadia Bolz-Weber |
50811b0
|
Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.
|
|
inspiration
living
life-lessons
life
siddhartha
sin
|
Hermann Hesse |
d5406c0
|
He that becomes protector of sin shall surely become its prisoner.
|
|
lust
sin
habit
|
Augustine of Hippo |
7ff554f
|
Teach the ignorant as much as you can. Society is to blame for not giving free education: it is responsible for the darkness it creates. the soul in darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness
|
|
responsibillity
ignorance
sin
|
Victor Hugo |
10aa344
|
Not doing anything doing something and choosing to look away is a passive but no less mortal sin.
|
|
suffering
passive-aggressive
ignorance
sin
|
Bill Maher |
70a917a
|
Pride in office without competence is as much a sin as competence without confidence.
|
|
confidence
pride-in-office
pride
sin
|
Peter Tremayne |
cb125d6
|
...Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office.
|
|
human
sin
|
Nathaniel Hawthorne |
72a0938
|
I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.
|
|
satisfaction
god
john-piper
sin
|
John Piper |
0460e17
|
Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
|
|
mankind
sex
motivation
vainglory
vice
sin
|
Barbara W. Tuchman |
4e0fad4
|
...such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.
|
|
sin
|
Nathaniel Hawthorne |
dd4df5b
|
We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes.
|
|
good-and-evil
mankind
humanity
give-and-take
triumph
price
cost
society
survival
crime
sin
|
H. Rider Haggard |
b25fff7
|
Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith - It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner...
|
|
stereotypes
men
women
sinner
weakness
sin
|
Anne Brontë |
56b7801
|
Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about material substances instead of about ideas. The old civilisation talked about the sin of gluttony or excess. We talk about the Problem of Drink--as if drink could be a problem. When people have come to call the problem of human intemperance the Problem of Drink, and to talk about curing it by attacking the drink traffic, they have reached quite a dim stage of barbarism. The thing is an inverted form of fetish worship; it is no sillier to say that a bottle is a god than to say that a bottle is a devil. The people who talk about the curse of drink will probably progress down that dark hill. In a little while we shall have them calling the practice of wife-beating the Problem of Pokers; the habit of housebreaking will be called the Problem of the Skeleton-Key Trade; and for all I know they may try to prevent forgery by shutting up all the stationers' shops by Act of Parliament.
|
|
brilliance
modern-barbarism
g-k-chesterton
sin
|
G.K. Chesterton |
080ad77
|
A machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own.
|
|
machines
sin
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
24ddfc3
|
The wicked fear the good, because the good are a constant reproach to their consciences. The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion when it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.
|
|
morality
religion
immorality
shame
guilt
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
e26b99f
|
God wants us to worry about our sins we sin; the devil wants us to worry we sin. God wants us to feel free after we repent (for we really are free then); the devil is a deceiver). The devil tempts us to cavalier pride before we sin and worrisome despair afterward, since pride and despair both separate us from God, and anything that separates us from God is the devil's friend and our enemy, while anything that brings us close to God is the devil's enemy and our friend.
|
|
prayer
faith
god
evil
sin
|
Peter Kreeft |
0088291
|
Let the freedom to fail give you the hope to fight.
|
|
hope
sin
|
John Piper |
d8ebed7
|
There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences.
|
|
true
tool
fatal
limit
law
force
government
consequences
vengeance
sin
|
Frank Herbert |
c4eec76
|
You can count the bruises on your heart easily enough, but numbering sins is a far tricker matter. Men are eternally forgetting for their benefit. They leave it to the World to remeber, and to the Outside to call them to harsh accout. One hundred Heavens . . . for one thousand Hells.
|
|
sin
|
R. Scott Bakker |
1479d40
|
I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You oh God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter.
|
|
wickedness
sin
|
St. Augustine of Hippo |
ed7b611
|
When I'm brave and strong, and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person. And when I'm cruel, cowardly, or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone less worthy, and I can't respect myself. That's the divine retribution I believe in
|
|
self-respect
sin
|
Ken Follett |
be67685
|
Men are men, unfortunately, no matter what their shape, and inclined to sin.
|
|
truth
ray-bradbury
sin
|
Ray Bradbury |
e272f00
|
The law, instead of cleansing the heart from sin, doth revive it, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it doth discover and forbid it, for it doth not give power to subdue.
|
|
law
power
soul
sin
|
John Bunyan |
fe235c3
|
"Strong passions are the precious raw material of sanctity. Individuals that have carried their sinning to extremes should not despair or say, "I am too great a sinner to change," or "God would not want me." God will take anyone who is willing to love, not with an occasional gesture, but with a "passionless passion," a "wild tranquility." A sinner, unrepentant, cannot love God, any more that a man on dry land can swim; but as soon as he takes his errant energies to God and asks for their redirection, he will become happy, as he was never happy before. It is not the wrong things one has already done which keep one from God; it is the present persistence in that wrong."
|
|
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
6fb1acf
|
The more sin he sees, the more his belief in Original Sin is confirmed. Everyone likes to have his deepest convictions confirmed: that is one of the most abiding of human satisfaction.
|
|
sin
|
Anthony Burgess |
8056b01
|
You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sin, you know, and cry tears doing it that are genuine as any.
|
|
tears
sin
|
Leif Enger |
a337f03
|
It gives a fella relief to tell, but it jus' spreads out his sin.
|
|
sin
|
John Steinbeck |
0c36f77
|
It's so much more interesting to study a ... damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that's too civilized.
|
|
sin
|
Brian Herbert |
f666c6d
|
The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous.
|
|
rationalization
sin
|
Joseph Heller |
b7f7f1f
|
Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. 'Odd, isn't it,' he said, 'that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?
|
|
thief
repentance
rich
sin
|
G.K. Chesterton |
fc63b33
|
Delight is delice, delit is a misdemeanour' 'Well, it's bloody close...' 'Well, they often are....
|
|
forbidden-fruit
french
sin
|
Alan Hollinghurst |
bbd169c
|
But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.
|
|
virtue
pages
sin
|
Umberto Eco |
1fff5a2
|
We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what? We believed them, even though we could see that what they were doing was wicked and evil and wrong... We thought Dust must be bad too, because they were grown up and they said so. But what if it isn't? What if it's--' She said breathlessly, 'Yeah! What if it's really good...
|
|
good-and-evil
good
original-sin
evil
sin
|
Philip Pullman |
52e90bd
|
You're going to have things to repent, boy,' Mr. John had told Nick. 'That's one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is to have them.
|
|
nick-adams
repent
sin
|
Ernest Hemingway |
64db181
|
I think it takes some terrible or great event to fuse two people together without inhibition. Without heat or shock, it can't be done. I believe that's why sexual love, which needn't be, is so intensely intertwined with sin.
|
|
sex
love
event
fuse
shock
terrible
sin
|
Mark Helprin |
d1941d2
|
Hate the sin, not the sinner, isn't that what good people say? Or are you asking yourself at what point does the sin overtake the sinner?
|
|
sinner
sin
|
Katie McGarry |
219d6d1
|
Maybe because the Dark can only reach people at extremes; blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads.
|
|
satan
sin
|
Susan Cooper |
e846496
|
She was a logical child, as far as children go. She did not understand how such a nice, kind, good God as the one they preyed to, could condemn the whole earth for sinfulness and flood it, or condemn his only Son to a disgusting death on behalf of everyone. This death did not seem to have done much good.
|
|
religion
god
punishment
logic
sin
|
A.S. Byatt |
8fa1ff8
|
Scepticism is never certain of itself, being less a firm intellectual position than a pose to justify bad behavior.
|
|
scepticism
immorality
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
8f2443b
|
Some men drink the blood of other men, all I drink is wine.
|
|
wine
sin
|
Mohsin Hamid |
e8d4585
|
The more He loved those for whom He was the ransom, the more His anguish would increase, as it is the faults of friends rather than enemies which most disturb hearts!
|
|
the-cross
salvation
redemption
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
f75eb5d
|
Fear not, brothers and sisters, God, who is full of grace and abounding in steadfast love, meets us in our sin and transforms us for God's glory and the healing of God's world. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, your sins are forgiven, be now at peace.
|
|
religion
god
love
holy-spirit
grace
son
father
sin
|
Nadia Bolz-Weber |
698dddd
|
I don't think anybody'd remember and certainly do know everybody'd lie. 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...) I do believe that lying is a sin, unless it's 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 Dialectical propaganda and Comitern techniques among other causes) that, when a man tells the truth, everybody, looking in the mirror and seeing a liar... ...like those LSD heads in newspaper photographs who sit in parks gazing rapturously at the sky to show how high they are when they're only victims momentarily of a contraction of the blood vessels and nerves in the brain that causes the illusion...
|
|
lying
illusion
truth
marxian-dialectical-propaganda
lsd
lie
sin
|
Jack Kerouac |
a9dcf9b
|
Describing his experience with the sting of an extremely toxic jellyfish, he did something you don't often see a scientist do: he shivered.
|
|
emotion
testimony
perspective
vulnerability
sin
|
Bill Bryson |
6b12bcb
|
Satan fell by the force of gravity.
|
|
satan
pride
sin
|
G. K. Chesterton |
9f5879a
|
It was not enough that the Son of God should come down from the heavens and appear as the Son of Man, for then He would have been only a great teacher and a great example, but not a Redeemer. It was more important for Him to fulfill the purpose of the coming, to redeem man from sin while in the likeness of human flesh. Teachers change men by their lives; Our Blessed Lord would change men by His death. The poison of hate, sensuality, and envy which is in the hearts of men could not be healed simply by wise exhortations and social reforms. The wages of sin is death, and therefore it was to be by death that sin would be atoned for.
|
|
the-cross
salvation
redemption
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
5493000
|
He came to put a harlot above a Pharisee, a penitent robber above a High Priest, and a prodigal son above his exemplary brother. To all the phonies and fakers who would say that they could not join the Church because His Church was not holy enough, He would ask, 'How holy must the Church be before you will enter into it?' If the Church were as holy as they wanted it to be, they would never be allowed into it! In every other religion under the sun, in every Eastern religion from Buddhism to Confucianism, there must always be some purification before one can commune with God. But Our Blessed Lord brought a religion where the admission of sin is the condition of coming to Him. 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill.
|
|
christianity
jesus
spirituality
religion
the-church
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
be87220
|
He told them therefore that He was not a Teacher asking for a disciple who would parrot His sayings; He was a Saviour Who first disturbed a conscience and then purified it. But many would never get beyond hating the disturber. The Light is no boon, except to those who are men of good will; their lives may be evil, but at least they want to be good. His Presence, He said, was a threat to sensuality, avarice, and lust. When a man has lived in a dark cave for years, his eyes cannot stand the light of the sun; so the man who refuses to repent turns against mercy. No one can prevent the sun from shining, but every man can pull down the blinds and shut it out.
|
|
jesus
immorality
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
f7f1887
|
The deaf who deny they are deaf will never hear; the sinners who deny there is sin deny thereby the remedy of sin, and thus cut themselves off forever from Him Who came to redeem.
|
|
the-cross
salvation
redemption
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
21b4b9e
|
Each instinct and passion of man is amoral; it is only the abuse of these passions that makes them wrong. There is nothing wrong about hunger, but there is something wrong about gluttony; there is no sin in thirst, but there is a sin in drunkenness; there is nothing wrong with a man who seeks economic security, but there is something wrong with a man who is avaricious; there is nothing to be despised in knowledge, but there is something to be condemned in pride; there is nothing wrong with the flesh, but there is something wrong in the abuse of the flesh. Just as dirt is matter in the wrong place, so sin is flesh in the wrong place. Sex has its place in that area of life designed for its fruition, but the misuse of it outside of that natural and supernatural bond is wrong.
|
|
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
364a607
|
The good repent on knowing their sin; the evil become angry when discovered. Ignorance is not the cause of evil, as Plato held; neither is education the answer to the removal of evil. These men had an intellect as well as a will; knowledge as well as intention. Truth can be known and hated; Goodness can be known and crucified. The Hour was approaching, and for the moment the fear of the people deterred the Pharisees. Violence could not be triggered against Him until He would say, 'This is your Hour.
|
|
the-cross
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
3a6b6b3
|
He came to destroy sin because it is fatal.
|
|
life
sin
|
John Piper |
94404d1
|
"The author says people are guilty of "wrecking the present because the future was bound to be a wreck."
|
|
pessimism
sin
|
T.H. White |
3438e51
|
This is a night for song and sin and drink, for come the morrow, the virtuous and the vile burn together.
|
|
death
pious
vile
virtuous
fire-and-blood
tomorrow
night
sin
hell
|
George R.R. Martin |
065f207
|
Papa used to say that wealth is a sin and poverty is a punishment but that God apparently wants there to be no connection between the sin and the punishment. One man sins and another is punished. That's how the world is made.
|
|
sin
|
Amos Oz |
6f7b6bb
|
The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maiden's?
|
|
monks
pedophilia
misogyny
hypocrisy
lust
vice
sin
|
Umberto Eco |
d68f494
|
Alle menschlichen Fehler sind Ungeduld, ein vorzeitiges Abbrechen des Methodischen, ein scheinbares Einpfahlen der scheinbaren Sache.
|
|
life
philosophy
truth
sin
|
Franz Kafka |
dbe4722
|
Interesting, Miles thought. Like himself, Father Mark, as a child, had been reassured by the imagined proximity of God, whereas adults, perhaps because they so often were up to no good, took more comfort from His remoteness.
|
|
god
sin
|
Richard Russo |
a89a048
|
Sin is a gravitation.
|
|
religion
sin
|
Victor Hugo |
c48893b
|
- You take evil for good. It's a passing crisis. It's the result of your illness, perhaps. - You do despise me! It's simply that I don't want to do good, I want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness. - Why do evil? - So that everything will be destroyed. Oh, how nice it would be if everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of doing a lot of harm. I would do it for a long while secretly and then suddenly everyone would find out. Everyone will stand around and point their fingers at me and I will look at them all. That would be awfully nice.
|
|
sin
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
af6853f
|
Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art & Science, which alone are the labours of the Gospel: Is not this plain & manifest to the thought? Can you think at all, & not pronounce heartily! That to Labour in Knowledge. is to Build up Jerusalem: and to Despise Knowledge, is to Despise Jerusalem & her Builders. And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental Gift in another; calling it pride & selfishness & sin; mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift. which always appear to the ignorance-loving Hypocrite, as Sins. but that which is a Sin in the sight of cruel Man. is not so in the sight of our kind God.
|
|
jesus
faith
gifts
sin
|
William Blake |
ae414b2
|
And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?
|
|
humanity
fear
human-frailty
weakness
sin
|
Umberto Eco |
8a311c5
|
Another part or piece,' said Diabolus, 'of mine excellent armour, is a dumb and prayerless spirit, a spirit that scorns to cry for mercy, let the danger be ever so great; therefore be you, my Mansoul, sure that you make use of this.
|
|
war
prayer
spiritual
bunyan
sin-nature
spiritual-quotes
spiritual-warfare
weapons
sin
|
John Bunyan |
8442d77
|
All men are sinners.
|
|
morality
sinner
right-and-wrong
sin
|
George R.R. Martin |
962e5b2
|
The Father made men curious, some say to test our faith. It is my own abiding sin that whenever I come upon a door I must needs see what lies upon the farther side, but certain doors are best left unopened.
|
|
faith
doors
unopened
fire-and-blood
curious
knowledge
unknown
sin
|
George R.R. Martin |
2c5d86d
|
At a certain point in his life he stopped searching for himself in everything that exists and gave in to temptations. Or, as you say, he sinned and later fled.
|
|
unity
sin
|
Laura Esquivel |
10b35aa
|
Lo, God! I am Thy handiwork. I have sinned and have done great evil, yet I am still Thy handiwork, who hath made me what I am. So, though I may not undo that which I have done, yet I may, with Thy aid, do better hereafter than I have done heretofore.
|
|
god
repentance
remorse
sin
|
Howard Pyle |
3c80463
|
-- Mas o que e que voce faria com o Graal? -- Eu iria usa-lo. -- Para que? -- Para livrar o mundo do pecado. -- Seria um trabalho notavel, mas nem Cristo conseguiu realiza-lo. -- Voce para de eliminar ervas daninhas entre os vinhedos so porque elas sempre voltam a nascer?
|
|
sin
|
Bernard Cornwell |
525347b
|
Sin as little as possible-that is the law of mankind. Not to sin at all is the dream of the angel. All earthly things are subject to sin. Sin is like gravity.
|
|
sin
|
Victor Hugo |
6b54072
|
He doesn't blame people for many sins, but he does hate uncoordination, the root of all evil, as he feels it, for without coordination there can be no order, no connecting.
|
|
janice-springer
rabbit-angstrom
sin
|
John Updike |
57ff1b2
|
The only sin is selfishness.
|
|
sin
|
Iain M. Banks |
ef9058d
|
The redeemed of God who are snatched from the flames by the hand of the Lord are still covered with ashes. We remain streaked with charcoal and blemished with soot. We are redeemed, but not sinless. Satan is quick to call attention to the dirt. He wants us to be more conscious of our sin than of God's mercy.
|
|
christianity
grace
forgiveness
shame
guilt
sin
|
R.C. Sproul |
6d95090
|
To those who rejected Him, righteousness would one day appear as a terrible justice; to the sinful men who accepted Him and allied themselves to His life, righteousness would show itself as mercy.
|
|
righteousness
pharisees
the-cross
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
5e72fb2
|
"The Apostle "Paul's antidote for wimpy Christians is weighty doctrine. . . .everything that exists--including evil--is ordained by a holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly. We don't make God. He makes us. We don't decide what he is going to be like. He decides what he is going to be like. He decides what we are going to be like. He created the universe, and it has the meaning he gives it, not the meaning we give it. If we give it a meaning different from his, we are fools. . . . our eternal joy and strength and holiness depend on the solidity of this worldview putting strong fiber into the spine of our faith. Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won't survive the days ahead."
|
|
glory-of-god
sin
|
John Piper |
b173136
|
God has to punish sinners, because God is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life. However true or untrue that is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach people that Jesus rescues us from God.
|
|
jesus
death
religion
god
sin
hell
|
Rob Bell |
32fe93d
|
As Adam lost the heritage of union with God in a garden, so now Our Blessed Lord ushered in its restoration in a garden. Eden and Gethsemane were the two gardens around which revolved the fate of humanity. In Eden, Adam sinned; in Gethsemane, Christ took humanity's sin upon Himself. In Eden, Adam hid himself from God; in Gethsemane, Christ interceded with His Father; in Eden, God sought out Adam in his sin of rebellion; in Gethsemane, the New Adam sought out the Father and His submission and resignation. In Eden, a sword was drawn to prevent entrance into the garden and thus immortalizing of evil; in Gethsemane, the sword would be sheathed.
|
|
jesus
god
gethsemane
eden
sin
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
0aa2453
|
She was a blameless sinless woman, yet she understood who how it was with people who sinned. Inflexibly rigid in her own moral conduct, she condoned weaknesses in others. She revered God and loved Jesus, but she understood why people often turned away from these Two.
|
|
religion
sin
|
Betty Smith |
683d378
|
"That's the unforgivable sin, you know." "What is?" "Refusing to forgive someone." "Refusing to forgive someone is the unforgivable sin?" I asked incredulously."
|
|
irony
humor
sin
|
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor |
7698184
|
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.
|
|
devil
evil
sin
|
Dan Simmons |
d92c024
|
Our Christian faith - and correlatively, our account of apologetics - is tainted by modernism when we fail to appreciate the effects of sin on reason. When this is ignored, we adopt an Enlightenment optimism about the role of a supposedly neutral reason in the recognition of truth.
|
|
enlightenment
christianity
reason
truth
rational
total-depravity
sin
|
James K.A. Smith |
6b02d41
|
We're Christians. We have to care what people think. The appearance of wrongdoing, remember? I'm not going to move in with you had have people think we're living in sin. What sort of witness would that be?
|
|
impressions
witness
sin
|
Francine Rivers |
1828968
|
"Do you believe in hell, Justina?" "Yes, Susana. And in heaven, too." "I only believe in hell, " said Susana."
|
|
existence
torment
sin
|
Juan Rulfo |
cc1b3be
|
The appeal was so often the same: Make me comfortable so I can go on doing whatever I want to do. They wanted sin without consequences.
|
|
sin
|
Francine Rivers |
da04ccf
|
For if this God exists, I thought, and if even you - with your lusts and your adulteries and the timid lies you used to tell - can change like this, we could all be saints by leaping as you leapt, by shutting the eyes and leaping once and for all: if you are a saint, it's not so difficult to be a saint. It's something He can demand of any of us, leap.
|
|
lies
god
saints
lust
sin
|
Graham Greene |
4a0f448
|
And I saw her as a sad thirtieth child of Valentine that fell, not as Lucifer rebelling against God, but because she too passionately wanted to be united with him! All things in excess become sin.
|
|
passion
valentine
lucifer
sin
|
Lawrence Durrell |
b8d5649
|
Those who are ignorant should be taught all you can teach them; society is to blame for not providing free public education; and society will answer for the obscurity it produces. If the soul is left in darkness, sin will be committed. The guilty party is not he who has sinned but he who created the darkness in the first place.
|
|
society
sin
|
Victor Hugo |
f2d4e99
|
"During his time with the French army, years before, one of the sergeants had explained to the younger mercenaries the trick of falling asleep the night before a battle. "Make yourself comfortable, examine your conscience, and make a good Act of Contrition. Father Hugo says that in time of war, even if there is no priest to shrive you, your sins can be forgiven this way. Since you cannot commit sins while asleep--not even you, Simenon!--you will awake in a state of grace, ready to fall on the bastards. And with nothing to look forward to but victory or heaven-- how can you be afraid."
|
|
sleep
grace
peace
sin
|
Diana Gabaldon |
8fa88f3
|
Ignorance doesn't lead to salvation, nor does knowledge pave the way to sin. - Cinda Williams Chima
|
|
salvation
ignorance
knowledge
sin
|
Scott Westerfeld |
1cec89a
|
As Father, the authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion. That authority comes from letting the sins of his children pierce his heart. There is no lust, greed, anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeance in his lost children that has not cause immense grief to his heart. The grief is so deep because the heart is so pure. From the deep inner place where love embraces all human grief, the Father reaches out to his children. The touch of his hands, radiating inner light, seeks only to heal. Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless. In Latin, to bless is benedicere, which means literally: saying good things. The Father wants to say, more with his touch than with his voice, good things of his children. He has no desire to punish them. They have always been punished excessively by their own inner or outer waywardness. The Father wants simply to let them know that the love they have searched for in such distorted ways has been, is, and always will be there for them. The Father wants to say, more with his hands than with his mouth: 'You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.' He is the shepherd, 'feeding his flock, gathering lambs in his arms, holding them against his breast.' The true center of Rembrandt's painting is the hands of the father.
|
|
god
love
rembrandt
father
sin
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
128a6e6
|
Humanizing war?! You may as well talk of humanizing Hell. Sir John Fisher
|
|
division
sin
|
Barbara W. Tuchman |
541e720
|
Why, since folly or perversity is expected of individuals, should we expect anything else from government?
|
|
depravity
sin
|
Barbara W. Tuchman |
9958679
|
Farkli hisseden, farkli hassasiyetlere sahip ve farkindaligi guclenmis baska bir insan haline geldigimi biliyorum. Daha iyi bir insan oldugumu iddia edecek cesaretim yok elbette, ama daha mutlu bir insan oldugumu biliyorum, cunku o buz gibi donuk hayatim icin yeni bir anlam buldum, yasamin kendisinden baska bir sozcukle aciklayamayacagim bir anlam. Ait oldugum kesimin normlarini ve kaliplarini bos buldugum icin artik ne kendimden ne de baskalarindan utaniyorum. Onur, suc, gunah gibi kavramlar bir anda soguk, metalsi bir tini kazandi, bunlari dehsete kapilmadan telaffuz edemiyorum artik.
|
|
life-lessons
happiness
life
honour
guilt
sin
|
Stefan Zweig |
1b3b0c8
|
I'm more haunted by how what I've said and the things I've done have caused harm to myself and others than I am worried that God will punish me for being bad. Because in the end, we aren't punished for our sins as much as we are punished by our sins.
|
|
sin
|
Nadia Bolz-Weber |
235eabf
|
...It is the one time Dante calls such explicit attention to the idea of contrapasso-a word for which we have no exact translation, no precise definition in English, because the word in itself is its definition... Well, my dear Longfellow, I would say countersuffering ... the notion that each sinner must be punished by continuing the damage of his own sin against him... just as these Schismatics are cut apart...
|
|
divine-comedy
sin
|
Matthew Pearl |
0aba6be
|
Sins of ignorance or infirmity are to be admonished in a different way than intentional sins of malice of intention. The assurance of forgiveness is not to be offered carelessly by those whose conscience is seared, but to penitents who come contritely to the table of the Lord.
|
|
sins-of-commission
sins-of-omission
forgiveness
sin
|
Thomas C. Oden |
96b4884
|
Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids of modernity it has volunteered itself right out of existence. Demystification has dwindled into desacralization. The escape from routinization has become a convenient cover for the demise of repentance. The postmodern pastor is trying to learn anew to listen to the deeper range of feelings of others, without forgetfulness of the Word of God.
|
|
confession
ministry
pastoral-care
church
sin
|
Thomas C. Oden |
b849f67
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One trains the eye of confession most closely on what is hurting. If sin is present it will be aching. Confession begins where the raw anguish of conscience is rubbing against the primordial awareness of God's holiness.
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ministry
pastoral-care
repentance
sin
|
Thomas C. Oden |