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sin quotes

  • All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      A Certain World,'Hell'.

  • Thou shall not sin With statisticians nor commit A social science.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
    'Under  Which Lyre'.

  • They represented tomeanabsolute idea of thefirst state of innocence, before man knew how to sin.

    - Brendan Francis Behan
      Of the Indians of Surinam. Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave.

  •    In the licorice fields at Pontefract My love and I did meet And many a burdened licorice bush Was blooming round our feet; Red hair she had and golden skin, Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd, The strongest legs in Pontefract.

    - SirJohn Betjeman
      A Few Late Chrysanthemums,'The Licorice Fields at Pontefract'.

  • Be sure your sin will find you out.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Numbers 32:23.

  • Stand inawe, and sinnot: communewithyourownheart upon your bed, and be still.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 4:4.

  • For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 51:3^5.

  • Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms119:11.

  • Then said I,Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the L of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my 102 mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard thevoiceoftheLord,saying,Whomshall Isend, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDIsaiah 6:5^8.

  • Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew12:31.

  • Then came Peter to him, and said,Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee,Until seven times: but,Until seventy times seven.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Mattthew18:21^2.

  • The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith,Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John1:29.

  • So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them,Hethat iswithout sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John 8:7.

  • Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Romans 5:20.

  • What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Romans 6:1^2.

  • For thewages of sinisdeath; butthegiftof God iseternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Romans 6:23.

  • Wherefore seeing we alsoare compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Hebrews12:1^2.

  • If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
      John1:8^9.

  • If any mansin, wehaveanadvocate withthe Father,Jesus Christ the righteous.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
      John 2:1.

  • We receive this Child into the Congregation of Christ's flock, and dosign him with thesign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. Amen.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Publick Baptism of Infants, Reception of the Child.

  • [They] will fearlessly commit both parties to favor mother love and the protection of the whooping crane, and to oppose the man-eating shark and the more unpopular forms of sin.

    - David McClure Brinkley
    Of party platforms. Quoted in Marc Gunther The House That Roone Built (1994).

  • Thismiry slough, issuch a place as cannot be mended: It is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sindoth continually run, and therefore isit called the Slough of Despond.

    -John Bunyan
      The Pilgrim's Progress, pt.1.

  • He that lives in sin and looks for happiness hereafter is likehimthat soweth cockleand thinkstofill hisbarnwith wheat or barley.

    -John Bunyan
      The Pilgrim's Progress, pt.2.

  • But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate loveit stands alone, Like Adam's recollection of his fall; The tree of knowledge hath been pluck'dall's known And life yields nothing further to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven.

    -Rochdale
    ^24  Don Juan, canto1, stanza127.

  • Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin is a pleasure.

    -Rochdale
    ^24  Don Juan, canto1, stanza133.

  • An original something, fair maid you would win me To writebut how shall I begin? For I fear I have nothing original in me Excepting Original Sin.

    -Thomas Campbell
      'To aYoung Lady, Who  Asked Me to Write Something Original for Her  Album'.

  • Tea is like the East he grows in, A great yellow Mandarin With urbanity of manner And unconsciousness of sin.

    - G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
      The Flying Inn, ch.18, stanza 2. Collected as'The Song of Right and Wrong' in Wine, Water and Song (1915).

  • Keep up appearances; there lies the test; The world will give thee credit for the rest. Outward be fair, however foul within; Sin if thou wilt, but then in secret sin.

    - Charles Churchill
      Night, l.311^12.

  • It's not a sin to be rich anymoreit's a miracle.

    -John Bowden Connally
      In Time,18  Jan.

  • As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

    -William Cowper
      Poems,'The Progress of Error', l.285^8.

  • Wilt thou forgive that sin, where I begun, Which is my sin, though it was done before? Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I run And do them still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.

    -John Donne
    c.1623  'Hymn to God the Father'.

  • It is my belief,Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

    - SirArthur Conan Doyle
      The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'The Copper Beeches'.

  • In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin.

    -John Dryden
    Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.1^2.

  • But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.

    -John Dryden
    Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.79^81.

  • Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense And made almost a sin of abstinence.

    -John Dryden
      'The Character of a Good Parson', l.10^11.

  • Repentance is but want of power to sin.

    -John Dryden
      Palamon and  Arcite, bk.3, l.813.

  • The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      Four Quartets,'Little Gidding', pt.4.

  • Il y a toujours un moment o  u' la curiosite   devient un pe  che  , et le diable s'est toujours mis du co"  te   des savants. There is always a moment when curiosity becomes a sin and the devil is always on the side of the learned.

    -Thibault
      Le Jardin d'Epicure.

  • Don't tell my mother I'm living in sin, Don't let the old folks know.

    - SirA(lan) P(atrick) Herbert
      'Don't  Tell My Mother I'm Living in Sin'.

  • Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back; Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lacked any thing.

    - George Herbert
    'Love', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  • Sin has many tools, but a lie isthe handle which fits them all.

    - Oliver Wendell Holmes
    ^8  The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch.6.

  • To shave the beard is a sin that the blood of all the martyrs cannot cleanse.It is to deface the image of man created by God.

    -Ivan IV known as Ivan theTerrible
    Quoted in David Maland Europe in the Seventeenth Century (1968).

  •    It istruethat sinisthe cause of all thispain; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

    -Julian of Norwich known as LadyJulian
    ^c.1393  Revelations of Divine Love, ch.27.

  • That purple-lined palace of sweet sin.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Lamia', pt.2, l.31.

  •    For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'Tomlinson'.

  • Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

    - (Nelle) Harper Lee
       Atticus Finch. To Kill  A Mockingbird, pt.1, ch.10.

  • There is only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best.

    - Doris May ne  e Tayler Lessing
      The Golden Notebook,'The Blue Notebook'.

  • Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but more boldly believe and rejoice in Christ.

    - Martin Luther
      Letter to Melanchthon.

  • Herein may be seen noble chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte  , frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne.

    - SirThomas   d.1471 Malory
    c.1485  Morte d'Arthur, Caxton's preface.

  • The root of Evil, Avarice That damn'd ill-natur'd, baneful Vice, Was Slave to Prodigality, That noble Sin; whilst Luxury Employed a Million of the Poor, And odious Pride a Million more; Envy itself, and Vanity, Were Ministers of Industry; Their darling Folly, Fickleness, In Diet, Furniture and Dress That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made That very Wheel that turned theTrade.

    - Bernard Mandeville
      The Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (2nd edn.).

  • Depuis qu'Eve fit pe  cherAdam, toutes les femmes ont pris possession de tourmenter, tuer et damner les hommes. Ever since Eve made Adam sin, women have taken it upon themselves to torment, kill and damn men.

    -Marguerite d'Angoule"  me
      Heptame  ron, pt.1.

  • Le scandale est souvent pire que le pe  che  . The scandal is often worse than the sin itself.

    -Marguerite d'Angoule"  me
      Heptame  ron, pt.25.

  • C'est presque toujours le pe  che   qui pre"  che la vertu dans nos chaires. It's almost always sin which preaches virtue in our pulpits.

    - Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
    La vie de Marianne, ch.4.

  • I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance.

    - Christopher Marlowe
    c.1589  The Jew of Malta (published1633),'Prologue to the Stage, At the Cock-pit'.

  • There is not such another in The world, to offer for their sin.

    - Andrew Marvell
    c.1650^1652  'The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn' (published1681).

  • Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

    - Herman Melville
      Mardi, ch.63.

  • Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout intotheregions of sinand falsity thanby reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.

    -John Milton
      Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

  • Theyare not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin.

    -John Milton
      Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

  • Le scandale du monde est ce qui fait l'offense, Et ce n'est pas pe  cher que pe  cher en silence. A scandal is that which gives offence to the world. To sin in private is not to sin at all.

    -Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molie'  re
      Le Tartuffe, act 4, sc.5.

  • Hatred is always a sin, my mother told me. Remember that.One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discoloreverything like a drop of black ink inwhite milk. I was struck by that and meant to try it, but knew I shouldn't waste the milk.

    - Alice ne  e Laidlaw Munro
      The Progress of Love,'The Progress of Love'.

  • Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

    -Vladimir Nabokov
      Humbert Humbert. Lolita, pt.1, ch.1.

  • When the parish priest rebuked him for his celibacy, saying it would lead him into debaucheryand sin, hesaid that a man who had to be muzzled bya wife as a protection against debauchery was not worthy of the joy of innocence. After that people began to treat him with priestly respect.

    - Liam O'Flaherty
    'The Mermaid'.

  • Failure to examine the throat is a glaring sin of omission, especially in children.One finger in thethroat and one in the rectum makes a good diagnostician.

    - Sir William Osler
    Collected in W B Bean (ed) Sir William Osler:  Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

  •    The evil inthisworld iscommitted by thespiritual fatcats who think that they are without sin because theyare unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self- examination.

    - M(organ) Scott Peck
      What Return Can I Make?

  •    On a sofa upholstered in panther skin Mona did researches in original sin.

    -William Plomer
      'Mews Flat Mona'.

  • Of all affliction taught a lover yet, 'Tis sure the hardest science to forget! How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, And love th'offender, yet detest th'offence? How the dear object from the crime remove, Or how distinguish penitence from love? 659

    - Alexander Pope
      'Eloisa to Abelard'.

  • The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's owneven more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well- being.

    - Katherine Anne Porter
      Ship of Fools, pt.3.

  • Sir, there isno Levitical degreesbetween nations, and on this occasion I can see neither sin nor shame in marrying our own sister.

    - Sir Boyle Roche
    c.1800  Debate on theAct of Union between Great Britain and Ireland, Irish Houseof Commons, quotedin SirJonahBarrington Personal Sketches and Recollections of his ownTimes (1827).

  • I always say beauty is only sin deep.

    -Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
      Reginald,'Reginald's ChoirTreat'.

  •   Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.

    - Anne ne  e Harvey Sexton
      To Bedlam and PartWay Back,'Unknown Child in the MaternityWard'.

  • 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
      PastorAnderson toJudith Anderson. The Devil's Disciple, act 2.

  • Selwyn MacGregor, thenicest boy who evercommitted the sin of whisky.

    - Dame Muriel Sarah ne  e  Camberg Spark
      The Go-Away Bird,'A SadTale's Best forWinter'.

  • Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, Didst makeThy triumph over death and sin; And having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win:

    - Edmund Spenser
      Amoretti, sonnet 68.

  • Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, Didst makeThy triumph over death and sin; And having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win:

    - Edmund Spenser
      Amoretti, sonnet 68.

  •    I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.

    - Laurence Sterne
      A SentimentalJourney,'The Monk, Calais'.

  • I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; The Princess For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 5, l.1^8.

  • Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land; 844 Ring in the Christ that is to be.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto106, l.17^32.

  • You just wait. I'll sin until I blow up!

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      Under MilkWood.

  • Even stroking a cat may be regarded by strict Presbyterians as a carnal sin.

    - David Thomson
      Nairn in Darkness and Light.

  • Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself inThee, Let the water and the blood, From thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

    - Augustus Montague Toplady
      Hymn.

  • Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness.

    - Henry Vaughan
      Silex Scintillans,'The Retreat'.

  • Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

    - Alice Malsenior Walker
      'One Child of One's Own', in Ms., Aug.

  • I have heard grief named the eldest child of sin.

    -John Webster
      TheWhite Devil, act 5, sc.4.

  • Ifelt my heart strangely warmed.I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given methat hehad taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

    -John Wesley
      Journal entry, 24 May.

  •    The cause of plagues is sin, if you look to it well; and the cause of sin are plays; therefore the cause of plagues are plays.

    -Thomas White
    Attributed.

  • 'God knows how you Protestants can be expected to have any sense of direction,'she said.'It's different with us,I haven't been to mass for years, I've got every mortal sinonmyconscience, but I know when I'mdoing wrong. I'm still a Catholic, it's there, nothing can take it away from me.' 'Of course, duckie,'said Jeremy†'once a Catholic always a Catholic.'

    - SirAngus FrankJohnstone Wilson
      TheWrong Set,'Significant Experience'.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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