quotations about sin
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
History is to the effect that man's sins always find him out; but men continue to bet that they won't.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
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
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
Repentance is but want of power to sin.
JOHN DRYDEN
Palamon and Arcite
'Tis not for us to warn a wilful sinner;
We stay him not, but let him run his course,
Till by misfortunes rous'd, his conscience wakes,
And prompts him to appease th' offended gods.
ARISTOPHANES
The Clouds
But let me tell ya, spend every day living only for yourself, every day indulging in little sins that aren't that big of a deal, and one day I may be showing you the ropes in hell. Amen.
VICTORIA SCOTT
The Collector
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
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
By our sinful falls -- the powers of the soul are weakened; the strength of grace is decayed; our evidences for heaven are blotted; fears and doubts in the soul are raised (will God once more pardon this scarlet sin, and show mercy to this wretched soul?); the corruptions in the heart are more advantaged and confirmed; and the conscience of a man after falls is the more enraged or the more benumbed.
THOMAS BROOKS
Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
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
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
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.
THOMAS MERTON
No Man Is an Island
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
Sin, by its deadly infusions into the soul of man, wastes and eats out the innate vigor of the soul, and casts it into such a deep lethargy, as that it is not able to recover itself.
JOHN SMITH
Select Discourses
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 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
Dear lost sinner, if you are a wicked sinner, yet you do not have to die and go to Hell forever. If you are a criminal or a harlot, a blasphemer, a drunkard, a convict, or a dope fiend, God does not want you to go to Hell. People do not go to Hell simply because they are sinners. Rather they go because they will not repent of their sins! If you today will confess your sins to God, and in your poor, helpless heart, will, as far as you know how, turn away from your sin, God will have mercy and will forgive and save.
JOHN R. RICE
The Ruin of a Christian