quotations about sin
The great cheat and delusion set before every generation is simply this tradition, that there is anything like real substantial pleasure in sin.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
When I look back upon my life
It's always with a sense of shame
I've always been the one to blame
For everything I long to do
No matter where or when or who
Has one thing in common too;
It's a -- it's a -- it's a -- it's a sin!
PET SHOP BOYS
"It's a Sin", Actually
When the sinner hath used his liberty to repent, and God hath used his prerogative to pardon, the sin which hath been, is as if it had not been.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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
I find that the devil often makes use of the confession of sin to stir up again the very sin confessed into new exercise, so that I am afraid to dwell upon the confession.
ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE
The Life and Remains, Letters, Lectures, and Poems of the Rev Robert Murray M'Cheyne
The problem of sin is not to be confounded with the fact of sin. As to the fact, there is no room for question. All the great dramatists have recognized it in their portrayal of remorse, indignation, penalty, repentance, forgiveness, restoration. The great historians have recognized it, in depicting the struggle of righteousness with moral evil. Religious worship is largely founded upon it; for religious worship is largely an endeavor of the worshiper to rid himself of the present burden and the future penalty of sin. All government recognizes it; for certainly the first if not also the chief function of government is to protect the innocent from the sins of the sinful. He who denies the fact of sin denies the police and the prison, the temple and the priest, the battle-field and the martyrdom, Shakespeare and Aeschylus. The problem is not, Is there sin? but, Whence comes it? If we are to cure a disease, we must know its nature and origin. What is the nature and origin of sin, the cure of which is alike the problem of government, education, and religion -- of the courts, the school, and the church?
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
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
A sinner is an incendiary and sets the world on fire.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that's not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards.
FRANCIS CHAN
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
Sin is a slippery slope, and even the most pious of us, once we've taken those first tentative steps toward sin, find it difficult to turn back.
ROGER CARPENTER
"The Story of Sin (1975) - The Blu Review", We Are Movie Geeks, August 10, 2017
God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, ... are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.
MARTIN LUTHER
Dr. Martin Luther's Saemmtliche Schriften
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
GEORGE ELIOT
Daniel Deronda
On the determinist hypothesis an omnipotent God could have prevented all sin by creating us with better natures and in more favourable surroundings.... Hence we should not be responsible for our sins to God.
J. M. E. MCTAGGART
Some Dogmas of Religion
Sin is a terrible reality -- and one reason it's so terrible is because it separates us from God. But sin is also terrible because it affects every one of us, no matter how good or bad we are. In other words, we are all guilty before God, and none of us deserves His forgiveness or salvation.... But does this mean our situation is hopeless? Does this mean God will never forgive us, and Heaven's door is forever closed to us? No, it doesn't -- and the reason is because God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. We can never cleanse ourselves of our sins, no matter how hard we try -- but God has provided the way for us to be forgiven and cleansed!
BILLY GRAHAM
"Jesus is all the necessary proof that God will forgive you", Marietta Daily Journal, August 12, 2017
Too often, we say we are defeated by this or that sin. No, we are not defeated. We are simply disobedient. It might be good if we stop using the terms victory and defeat to describe our progress in holiness. Rather, we should use the terms obedience and disobedience. When I say I am defeated by some sin, I am unconsciously slipping out from under my responsibility. I am saying something outside of me has defeated me. But when I say I am disobedient, that places the responsibility for my sin squarely on me. We may in fact be defeated, but the reason we are defeated is because we have chosen to disobey.
JERRY BRIDGES
The Pursuit of Holiness
Wickedness comes to its height by degrees. He that dares say of a less sin, Is it not a little one? will ere long say of a greater, Tush, God regards it not!
ANNE BRADSTREET
Meditations Divine and Moral
God builds for every sinner, if he will but come back, a highway of golden promises from the depths of degradation and sin clear up to the Father's house.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Sin is the great element of hell, and where it exists heaven cannot be. Its triumphs are deeper than those of time, and more terrible than death. It has swept over the moral world, more glorious than the physical, and blighted by the beautiful and desecrated the holy. It has scattered abroad and afar the seeds of envy, war, lust, intemperance, murder, and all abomination and iniquity. It has drawn man aside from innocence and rectitude, and he has gone forth from the joy of Eden with a bowed head and a burning heart; and, worse than all, it has spread a veil athwart his moral vision, and alienated him from his Maker.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the evening or at the feast at midnight when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
God laid no foundation of wickedness in the principles of His creation; it is an unnatural super-structure of our own, without a foundation.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms