quotations about sin
Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners
We all know that sin is attractive, some kinds to some people, other kinds to other people. Its attractiveness explains why we are so afraid of it and why we so often take toward it what seems to me a false attitude. This attitude we hear expressed in many ways. One of the commonest is the betrayal among good people of a certain envy of sinners. It suggests that the good people think the sinners have acquired something they would themselves like to have, or something they are obliged to deny themselves by their refusal to sin. The sinners know better. They know that sin is not worth the return it brings. They know that in itself it is a penalty without reference to the penalties it carries in its train.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Perquisites of Sin", Intimations
Really to sin you have to be serious about it.
HENRIK IBSEN
Peer Gynt
The trouble with living in sin is the shortage of closet space.
MISSY DIZICK
attributed, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Was it not obviously meant to be understood that there was no other cause of the world's creation than that good creatures should be made by a good God? In this creation, had no one sinned, the world would have been filled and beautified with natures good without exception; and though there is sin, all things are not therefore full of sin, for the great majority of the heavenly inhabitants preserve their nature's integrity. And the sinful will, though it violated the order of its own nature, did not on that account escape the laws of God, who justly orders all things for good. For as the beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
You can tell people better how terrible sin is if you know from your own personal experience.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
Wise Blood
Sinners are made up of contradictions: contradictions to truth and reason, to God, to themselves, and to one another.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
TERRY PRATCHETT
Carpe Jugulum
Sin is a spiritual illness; thus sinners are in need of salvation.
THOMAS AQUINAS
"Osanna filio David", The Academic Sermons
The heart that sins must sorrow.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.
NELSON MANDELA
attributed, Nelson Mandela: His Words
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
Do no sinful action, speak no angry word; ye belong to Jesus, children of the Lord.
CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER
"Do No Sinful Action"
For a man does not therefore sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Nay, it cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this did God foreknow.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
For what is learned through sinning all sinners pay a heavy price. And most of what is learned carries a weight of sadness. From it some sinners never escape. Even in the wisdom of sinners there is the dreadful knowledge that in a better way, by steadfastly following the stern principles of duty, they might have acquired all they have gained. But how easily we speak of sin. One would think we knew what sin was and that it existed apart from people and that people rushed eagerly into sin. And yet we know that sin exists, not outside of man, but within his consciousness, in the secret recesses of the heart. Because we do evil it does not necessarily follow that we sin. But there is no doubt about our sinning when we think evil and love evil. And in such thinking and loving there are few perquisites. There is chiefly destruction, loss.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Perquisites of Sin", Intimations
Having once sinned, we must sin no more, and having to suffer in consequence of sin, we must bear it patiently.
MARY HOWITT
"The Author's Daughter", The Edinburgh Tales
Never sin went unpunished; and the end of all sin, if it be not repentance, is hell.
BISHOP HENSHAW
attributed, The Saturday Magazine, December 8, 1832
Two things I recognize, O Lord, in myself:
Nature, which Thou hast made;
Sin, which I have added.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
Everything sinful is glamorous these days, isn't it?
AIMEE AGRESTI
Illuminate
Having spent time around "sinners" and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral trap. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.
PHILIP YANCEY
What's So Amazing About Grace?