One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.
JOHN BUNYAN, The Pilgrim's Progress
Our justification from sins takes place at the point of saving faith, not at the point of water baptism, which usually occurs later. But if a person is already justified and has sins forgiven eternally at the point of saving faith, then baptism is not necessary for forgiveness of sins nor for the bestowal of new spiritual life. Baptism, then, is not necessary for salvation. But it is necessary if we are to be obedient to Christ, for he commanded baptism for all who believe in him.
WAYNE GRUDEM, Bible Doctrine
Really to sin you have to be serious about it.
There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Doctor Wortle's School
Repentance is but want of power to sin.
JOHN DRYDEN, Palamon and Arcite
By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places — whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest — where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, Young Goodman Brown
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
OSCAR WILDE, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.
Liberals and conservatives disagree over what are the most important sins. For conservatives, the sins that matter are personal irresponsibility, the flight from family life, sexual permissiveness, the failure of individuals to work hard. For liberals, the gravest sins are intolerance, a lack of generosity toward the needy, narrow-mindedness toward social and racial minorities.
E.J. DIONNE, JR., The War Against Public Life
There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, "Young Goodman Brown"
In my judgment, such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more by the absence of appetite, than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Feb. 22, 1842
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, The Devil's Disciple
- Think gently of the erring:
- Oh! do not thou forget,
- However darkly stained by sin
- He is thy brother yet.
JULIA CARNEY, Think Gently of the Erring
- My own sin
- will not hinder the working
- of God's goodness.
JULIAN OF NORWICH, Meditations with Julian of Norwich
Sometimes we keep the sin in our lives well protected, guarded, covered over with lies. Sometimes we are not free enough to own our sin, so we cannot be healed of it. An unacknowledged wound cannot be healed.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, Seasons of Your Heart
Sin always wounds the sinner.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER, The Reed of God
Like hairs on the head, mortal man is joined to Jesus Christ, the head of all, but they are full of transgressions and sins because of man's delight in the flesh. But the Church regenerates and purifies these from the unclean stench and filth of sin by penitence and confession, just as hair is cleansed from dew and drops, and as dust is shaken out and cleansed from wool.
HILDEGARD OF BINDEN, letter to the Abbot, c. 1166
And when I fall, the first time especially, what a light I have on myself! I thought I was strong, that gross temptation would not move me, that I would be faithful in all sorts of environment. I am down--in the dirt--I know myself now! But I know God, too, as I did not before, now I know the radiance of the shadowless light, I know now what sin is.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER, This War is the Passion
It is no more effort for a man to be a saint than to be a sinner; it becomes a mere matter of habit.
JEROME K. JEROME, "A Man of Habit"
It is ever thus that the things which we do wrong - although they may seem little at the time, and though from the hardness of our hearts we pass them lightly by - come back to us with bitterness.
BRAM STOKER, "The Rose Prince"
Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.
WM. PAUL YOUNG, The Shack
Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.
SIMON MAWER, The Gospel of Judas
|
