Sin Quotes

Quotes on Sin by the Saints

Where sin was hatched, let tears now wash the nest. --St. Robert Southwell

He who knows what God is, studies to avoid sin. - St. Benedict Joseph Labre

I am not ignorant of what is said of my Lord in the Psalm: "You destroy those who speak a lie." And again: "A lying mouth deals death to the soul." And likewise the Lord says in the Gospel: "On the day of judgment men shall render account for every idle word they utter." -- St. Patrick

Indeed it is written, Everyone who sins is a slave of sin; but the slave does not abide in the house for ever. The son abides for ever. Since then we too have been granted to have been called sons according to grace, we remain in the house for ever, if we hold firm the beginning of our undertaking to the end. --St. Theodore the Studite

The stench of impurity before God and the angels is so great, that no stench in the world can equal it. - St. Philip Neri

And when I hear it said that God is good and He will pardon us, and then see that men cease not from evil-doing, oh, how it grieves me! The infinite goodness with which God communicates with us, sinners as we are, should constantly make us love and serve Him better; but we, on the contrary, instead of seeing in his goodness an obligation to please Him, convert it into an excuse for sin which will of a certainty lead in the end to our deeper condemnation. -- St. Catherine of Genoa

We should all realize that no matter where or how a man dies, if he is in the state of mortal sin and does not repent, when he could have done so and did not, the Devil tears his soul from his body with such anguish and distress that only a person who has experienced it can appreciate it.  --St. Francis of Assisi

I see clearly with the interior eye, that the sweet God loves with a pure love the creature that He has created, and has a hatred for nothing but sin, which is more opposed to Him than can be thought or imagined. -- St. Catherine of Genoa

Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and providential reversal. "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we should not be condemned with the world." (1 Cor. 11:31-32).  --St. Maximos the Confessor

He who is sluggish in prayer, and slothful and negligent in serving his brethren and in performing other holy tasks, is explicitly called an idler by the apostle, and condemned as unworthy even of his bread. For St. Paul writes that the idler is not to have any food (cf. 2 Thess. 3:10); and elsewhere it is said that God hates idlers, that the idle man cannot be trusted, and that idleness has taught great evil (cf. Ecclus. 33:27). Thus each of us should bear the fruit of some action performed in God's name, even if he has employed himself diligently in but one good work. Otherwise he will be totally barren, and without any share in eternal blessings. -- St. Symeon Metaphrastis

Satisfaction consists in the cutting off of the causes of the sin. Thus, fasting is the proper antidote to lust; prayer to pride, to envy, anger and sloth; alms to covetousness. --St. Richard of Chichester

Fearful afflictions await the hard of heart, for without great sufferings they cannot become pliable and responsive. -- St. Thalassios the Libyan

In the Great Deluge in the days of Noah, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the earth, and out of this deluge very few escape. Scarcely anyone is saved. --Saint Alphonsus Maria Liguori

To abstain from sinful actions is not sufficient for the fulfillment of God's law. The very desire of what is forbidden is evil. -- St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle

He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement. --St. Alphonsus Liguori

We are convinced, that this sin [willful ignorance] alone causes the loss of more souls than all the other sins together, because he who is ignorant does not realize the harm he does by his sin, nor the great good he thus forfeits. -- St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

Let us therefore give ourselves to God with a great desire to begin to live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin, and to establish His life within us.  --St John Eudes

These persons, I say, make their first attack against the beasts that they have noticed are stronger and fiercer, and when these have been killed they more easily destroy the ones that are left, which are less terrible and less aggressive. Likewise, it is always the case that when the more powerful vices have been overthrown and are succeeded by weaker ones we shall obtain a perfect victory without any hardship. -- St. John Cassian

There is no sin or wrong that gives a man a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience. --Saint Catherine of Sienna

Enjoy yourself as much as you like – if only you keep from sin. --Saint John Bosco

You must ask God to give you power to fight against the sin of pride which is your greatest enemy - the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud. -- St. Vincent de Paul

Earthly riches are like the reed. Its roots are sunk in the swamp, and its exterior is fair to behold; but inside it is hollow. If a man leans on such a reed, it will snap off and pierce his soul. -- St. Anthony of Padua

You must ask God to give you power to fight against the sin of pride which is your greatest enemy – the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud.  -St. Vincent de Paul

The person who has surrendered himself entirely to sin indulges with enjoyment and pleasure in unnatural and shameful passions - licentiousness, unchastity, greed, hatred, guile and other forms of vice - as though they were natural. The genuine and perfected Christian, on the other hand, with great enjoyment and spiritual pleasure participates effortlessly and without impediment in all the virtues and all the supranatural fruits of the Spirit - love, peace, patient endurance, faith, humility and the entire truly golden galaxy of virtue - as though they were natural.  --St. Symeon Metaphrastis

We do not know the number of souls that is ours to save through our prayers and sacrifices; therefore, let us always pray for sinners. (1783) --St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in my Soul

If you praise your neighbor to one man and criticize him to another, you are the slave of self-esteem and jealousy. Through praise you try to hide your jealousy, through criticism to appear better than your neighbor. - St. Mark the Ascetic

In the light of the Divine Goodness, it seems to me, though others may think differently, that ingratitude is the most abominable of sins and that it should be detested in the sight of our Creator and Lord by all of His creatures who are capable of enjoying His divine and everlasting glory. It is a forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received, and as such it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all sins and misfortunes. Contrariwise, the grateful acknowledgment of blessings and gifts received is loved and esteemed both in heaven and on earth. - St. Ignatius of Loyola

Inveterate wickedness requires long practice of the virtues; for an engrained habit is not easily uprooted. - St. Thalassios the Libyan

When we are in sin, our soul is all diseased, all rotten; it is pitiful. The thought that the good God sees it ought to make it enter into itself. And then, what pleasure is there in sin? None at all. We have frightful dreams that the devil is carrying us away, that we are falling over precipices. Put yourself on good terms with God; have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance; you will sleep as quietly as an angel. You will be glad to waken in the night, to pray to God; you will have nothing but thanksgivings on your lips; you will rise I towards Heaven with great facility, as an eagle soars through the air. - St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

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