QUOTES ON SIN

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QUOTES ON SIN


    A man is first startled by sin; then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed. The man is impenitent, then obstinate, and then he is damned.
Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)

     A scab is a scab, even if you smear honey on it.
Yiddish Proverb

    A sin is two sins when it is defended.
Henry Smith

      A sin repeated seems permitted.
Jewish Proverb

      A wrong-doer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121–180)

      After one vice, a greater follows.
Spanish Proverb

      All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)

     All sins are attempts to fill voids.
Simone Weil (1909–1943)

     All the seven deadly sins are self-destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages, at least, lust and gluttony, avarice, and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self-torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape.
Angus Wilson (1913– )

    Anybody who has once been horrified by the dreadfulness of his own sin that nailed Jesus to the cross will no longer be horrified by even the rankest sins of a brother.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945)

     As virtue is its own reward, so vice is its own punishment.
Proverb

      Christ’s death on the cross included a sacrifice for all our sins, past, present, and future. Every sin that you will ever commit has already been paid for. All of our sins were future when Christ died two thousand years ago. There is no sin that you will ever commit that has not already been included in Christ’s death.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

      Christ’s definition of sin penetrates far deeper than a list of sins on a membership card. It goes to our inner desire, motivations, and secret thoughts.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

      Commit a major sin, all lesser sins follow.
Forrester Barrington

      Disobedience and sin are the same thing, for there is no sin but disobedience.
Theologia Germanica (c. 1350)

      Fashions in sin change.
Anna Roosevelt Halsted (1906–1975)

      Fight with your own sin, and let that fight keep you humble and full of sympathy when you go out into the world and strike at the sin of which the world is full.
Phillips Brooks (1835–1893)

      Fix your thought more on the God you desire than on the sin you abhor.
Walter Hilton (1340–1396)

     God does not cause us to sin, but he uses our sins to remind us of our weakness. We are less tempted to judge others, and more understanding when we become well acquainted with the wickedness of our own heart. We then learn how to view others with humility. . . . When we are caught by sin, God uses the experience to teach us about his righteousness and his hatred of sin.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

     God has nothing to say to the self-righteous.
Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–1899)

     God is a specialist in the sin disease.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

     He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it is a saint; that boasts of it is a devil.
Sir Thomas Fuller (1608–1661)

      He who does not forbid sin when he can, encourages it.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65)

      He who has commanded us not to look back when we have put our hands to the plough does as he would have us do—he does not regard the past sins of a soul which seeks his kingdom.
Saint Cyran

      He who has not felt what sin is in the Old Testament knows little what grace is in the New. He who has not trembled in Moses, and wept in David, and wondered in Isaiah, will rejoice little in Matthew, rest little in John. He who has not suffered under the law will scarcely hear the glad sound of the gospel. He who has not been awakened under the mountain will be little delighted with the cross.
R. W. Barbour (b. 1900)

     He who lives in sin and looks for happiness hereafter is like him who sows cockle and thinks to fill his barn with wheat or barley.
John Bunyan (1628–1688)

     Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat:
Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.
John Milton (1608–1674)

     His face was filled with broken commandments.
John Masefield (1878–1967)

     How immense appear to us the sins that we have not committed.
Madame Necker (1766–1841)

      I enquired what the iniquity was and found it to be no substance but the perversion of the will, turned aside from thee, O God.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

     I have fallen, Lord,
Once more.
I can’t go on, I’ll never succeed.
I am ashamed, I don’t dare look at you.
Ask my pardon
And get up quickly.
You see, it’s not falling that is the worst,
But staying on the ground.
Michel Quoist (1921– )

     I see the right, and I approve it too,
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.
Ovid (43 b.c.–a.d. 17)

     I wore vice like a garment; now it is stuck to my skin.
Alfred de Musset (1810–1857)

      If my hangups and negatives are called sin by our Lord, then sin it is.
Bob Turnbull (1775–1833)

     If you want to clear the stream, get the hog out of the spring.
American Negro Proverb

      In Adam’s fall
We sinned all.
      It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft under foot, without sudden turnings, without signposts.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

      It is against himself that everybody sins.
Latin Proverb

      It is but a step from companionship to slavery when one associates with vice.
Hosea Ballou (1771–1852)

      It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.
Josh Billings (1818–1885)

      It is not only temptation that tries the generous Christian, but at times sin also; he may have a heavy fall, one that he had thought impossible, so deep and strong had seemed his love for the Lord. And having fallen, he is likely to become discouraged. Never before has he understood to such an extent the ugliness of sin—because he has now a greater understanding of the love of God.
      All is grace. This fall will make him realize that he cannot rely on himself at all. It will put him in his place at the bottom. But with this mistrust of himself must go a greater confidence in God, the Father.
Michel Quoist (1921– )

     It is not when we are conscious of our faults that we are the most wicked; on the contrary, we are less so.
François Fénelon (1651–1715)

      Love a man even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love and is the summit of love on earth.
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevski (1821–1881)

      Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
Mark Twain (1835–1910)

      Man, I can assure you, is a wicked creature.
Molière (1622–1673)

      Man-like it is to fall into sin,
Fiend-like it is to dwell therein;
Christ-like it is for sin to grieve,
God-like it is all sin to leave.
Friedrich von Logau (1604–1655)

      Measure your growth in grace by your sensitiveness to sin.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      Men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences.
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880)

      Men who could not sin would not be men; they would be good clocks ticking out goodness.
George Arthur Buttrick (1892–1980)

      Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)


      My soul is like a mirror in which the glory of God is reflected, but sin, however insignificant, covers the mirror with smoke.
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

     Nights of pleasure are short.
Arabian Proverb

      No sin is small. No grain of sand is small in the mechanism of a watch.
Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)

      O sin, what hast thou done to this fair earth!
R. H. Dana (1815–1882)

      Oh, how horrible our sins look when they are committed by someone else.
Charles R. Swindoll (1934– )

      One leak will sink a ship; and one sin will destroy a sinner.
John Bunyan (1628–1688)

     One reason sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.
Billy Sunday (1862–1935)

      Only when the axe is put to the tree does the fruit of sin wither.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

      Original sin is the malice that is ever flickering within us.
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

     Other men’s sins are before our eyes; our own behind our backs.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65)

      Our sense of sin is in proportion to our nearness to God.
Thomas D. Bernard (1750–1818)

      People are no longer sinful. They are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.
Phyllis McGinley (1905–1977)

     We are not punished for our sins, but by them.
Elbert Green Hubbard (1856–1915)

      

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(CONTINUED)
Shallow natures tremble for a night after their sin, and when they find that the sun rises and men greet them as cordially as before, and that no hand lays hold on them from the past, they think little more of their sin—they do not understand that fatal calm that precedes the storm.
Marcus Dodds (1834–1909)

      Should we all confess our sins to one another, we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931)

     Sin . . . presents itself as a most desirable thing.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      Sin becomes a crime, not against law, but against love; it means not breaking God’s law so much as breaking God’s heart.
William Barclay (1907–1978)

      Sin causes the cup of blessing to spring a leak.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

      Sin does not appear to be irresistible—until you want to be free from it. The moment you attack it, you are surprised to find that most of its power is hidden.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

     Sin enough and you will soon be unconscious of sin.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      Sin has four characteristics: self-sufficiency instead of faith; self-will instead of submission; self-seeking instead of benevolence; self-righteousness instead of humility.
E. Paul Hovey (1908– )


     Sin is a breach of nature, a death of the soul, a disquiet of the heart, a weakening of power, a blindness of the sense, a sorrow of the spirit, a death of grace, a death of virtue, a death of good works, an aberration of the spirit, a fellowship with the devil, an expulsion of Christianity, a dungeon of hell, a banquet of hell, an eternity of hell.
Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1327)

      Sin is an affair of the will. It is not a “vestige of our animal inheritance.” That trivial notion comes from an unexamined, too-quickly swallowed doctrine of evolution. Why blame the brute creation? No self-respecting wolf would be guilty of our modern wars.
George Arthur Buttrick (1892–1980)

      Sin is defiance to the authority of God.
Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683)

      Sin is disease, deformity, weakness.
Plato (c. 428–348 b.c.)

      Sin is energy in the wrong channel.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

      Sin is essentially a departure from God.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)

      Sin is essentially rebellion against the rule of God.
Charles Colson (1931– )

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     Sin is fatal in all languages.
Roy L. Smith

      Sin is first a simple suggestion, then a strong imagination, then delight, then assent.
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471)

      Sin is like ice in our pipes—our spiritual lives have been “frozen.” There is only one solution, and that is repentance to clear the blockage and restore the flow of the Holy Spirit.
Billy Graham (1918– )

      Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction.
Simone Weil (1909–1943)

      Sin is not weakness, it is not a disease; it is red-handed rebellion against God and the magnitude of that rebellion is expressed by Calvary.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      Sin is not wrong doing; it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      Sin is sovereign till sovereign grace dethrones it.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892)

     Sin is strong and fleet of foot, outrunning everything.
Homer (c. Eighth Century b.c.)

      Sin is sweet in the beginning, but bitter in the end.
Talmud

      Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, and the contempt of his love.
John Bunyan (1628–1688)

      Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its ugly face.
Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)

     Sin may open bright as the morning, but it will end dark as night.
Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902)

      Sin pays—but it pays in remorse, regret, and failure.
Billy Graham (1918– )

      Sin writes histories; goodness is silent.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

      Sin. Rub out the first and last letters and you have I—or carnal self—the root of sin.
      Sinning is nothing but turning from God one’s face
And having turned it thus, turning it toward death.
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677)

      Sins are like circles in the water when a stone is thrown into it; one produces another. When anger was in Cain’s heart, murder was not far off.
Philip Henry (1631–1696)

      Some sins we have committed,
Some we have contemplated,
Some we have desired,
Some we have encouraged;
In the case of some we are innocent only because we did not succeed.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65)

      The apple is eaten and the core sticks in the throat.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904)

      The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck.
George Eliot (1819–1880)

      The Bible everywhere takes for granted Israel’s ability to obey the law. Condemnation fell because Israel, having that ability, refused to obey. They sinned not out of amiable weakness, but out of deliberate rebellion against the will of God. That is the inner nature of sin always, willful refusal to obey God. But still men go on trying to get conviction upon sinners by telling them they sinned because they could not help it.
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)

      The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

      The essence of sin is my claim to my right to myself.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      The essence of sin is rebellion against divine authority.
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)

      The Holy Ghost reveals . . . not only a depth of possible iniquity that makes us shudder but a height of holiness of which we never dreamed.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      The knowledge of Scripture is no obstacle to sin.
Jewish Proverb

      The laughter of sin is as the crackling of burning thorns.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      The religious dimension of sin is man’s rebellion against God. The moral and social dimension of sin is injustice.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)

      The reward of sin is death: that’s hard.
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)

      The seeds of our punishment are sown at the same time we commit the sin.
Hesiod (Eighth Century b.c.)

      The sin that shocks God is the thing which is highly esteemed among men—self-realization, pride, my right to myself.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

      The sin you do by two and two you must pay for one by one!
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

      The sins of the bedroom are not the only ones. The sins of the boardroom should be just as much a matter of concern.
Bishop Richard Harries

      The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport and backbiting; the pleasures of power; of hatred.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

      The sins of youth are paid for in old age.
Latin Proverb

      The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of sin. He who waits to be righteous before he enters into the Savior’s kingdom, the divine body, will never enter there.
William Blake (1757–1827)

     The way to Babylon will never bring you to Jerusalem.
Proverb

      There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners, and the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

      There is no minor sin when his justice confronts you, and there is no major sin when his grace confronts you.
      Three things sap a man’s strength: worry, travel, and sin.
Jewish Proverb

      To deny the reality of sin or struggle in our lives is to deny God the opportunity of working through our weakness.
Rebecca Manley Pippert

      To fall into sin is human, but to remain in sin is devilish.
German Proverb

     To forsake sin is to leave it without any thought of returning to it again.
William Gurnall (1617–1679)

     Vice is a miscalculation of chances, a mistake in estimating the value of pleasures and pains. It is false moral arithmetic.
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)

      Vice repeated, is like the wand’ring wind,
Blows dust in others’ eyes.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

      Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us, even in our pains.
Walter Colton (1797–1851)
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      Vices creep in under the name of virtues.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65)

     Vices that are familiar we pardon, new ones we rebuke.
Publilius Syrus (First Century b.c.)

     We are all afflicted with the disease; God is the physician.
Arabian Proverb

      We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge but also because we have not eaten of the Tree of Life.
Franz Kafka (1883–1924)

     We are too Christian really to enjoy sinning, and too fond of sinning really to enjoy Christianity. Most of us know perfectly well what we ought to do; our trouble is that we do not want to do it.
Peter Marshall (1902–1949)

      We can never sin but there will be two witnesses present to observe and register it, our own selves and God.
Ralph Venning (c. 1621–1674)

9      We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker’s, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

     We make a ladder of our vices if we trample them underfoot.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

      We sin on the installment plan. The bills come in later. But come they will for sin pays handsomely, relentlessly.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

      We sin two kinds of sin. We sin one kind of sin as though we trip off the curb, and it overtakes us by surprise. We sin a second kind of sin when we deliberately set ourselves up to fall.
Francis August Schaeffer (1912–1984)

      We used to say that we were punished for our sins, as though God were a judge on a bench who passed on the case and meted out penalty. The truth goes far deeper than that. We are not punished for our sins, but by them. It is our sins themselves that rise to slay us.
Elbert Green Hubbard (1856–1915)

      Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and takes off the relish of spiritual things—that to you is sin.
Susanna Wesley (1669–1742)

      When God should guide us, we guide ourselves; when he should be our Sovereign, we rule ourselves; the laws which he gives us we find fault with and would correct, and if we had the making of them, we would have made them otherwise; when he should take care of us (and must, or we perish), we will care for ourselves. . . . We are naturally our own idols.
Richard Baxter (1615–1691)

      Who swims in sin shall sink in sorrow.
Proverb

      You may say you are far from hating God; but if you live in sin, you are among God’s enemies, you are under Satan’s standard and enlisted there. You may not like it, no wonder; you may wish to be elsewhere. But there you are, an enemy to God.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)