Cardinal Sin Quotes & Sayings

To play the demagogue for purposes of self-interest is a cardinal sin against the people in a democracy, exactly as to play the courtier for such purposes is a cardinal sin against the people under other forms of government. — Theodore Roosevelt

Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It's not your garden, it's not a park - it's a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer's plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness. — Ben Aaronovitch

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return. — W. H. Auden

Intolerance is a beautiful thing ... There are people that are politically correct that want to say the cardinal sin of the hour is intolerance and I think that is a bunch of junk. — Randall Terry

Until fairly recently, Amish teachers would reprimand the student who raised his or her hand as being too individualistic. Calling attention to oneself, or being 'prideful,' is one of the cardinal Amish worries. Having your name or photo in the papers, even talking to the press, is almost a sin. — Howard Rheingold

The surest way of misunderstanding revelation is to take it literally, to imagine that God spoke to the prophet on a long-distance telephone. Yet most of us succumb to such fancy, forgetting that the cardinal sin in thinking about ultimate issues is literal-mindedness. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Self Promotion on Goodreads or Amazon forums is a cardinal sin. Everywhere else on the internet, it's just part of life. If you're running for President, that IS life. — Jack Bee

In one word, the great pillar of the Christian's hope is substitution. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ for the guilty, Christ being made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, Christ offering up a true and proper expiatory and substitutionary sacrifice in the room, place, and stead of as many as the Father gave him, who are known to God by name, and are recognized in their own hearts by their trusting in Jesus
this is the cardinal fact of the gospel. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I hear the doctor give his condolences to James and promise if a liver becomes available from a donor match that he's first on the list.
Shivers of grief rip trough every nerve ending as I lean over to pray. It's probably a cardinal sin to wish someone else would die but I'm not capable of caring. — Audrey Carlan

If you're a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring. — David Halberstam

Celeste committed the cardinal sin of leaning across Jack's arm. "You will excuse me, Madam, but I have something most particular to say to Monsieur Trestain."
"That was rude," jack said, though he was smiling.
"No doubt you thought her very beautiful."
"No doubt that is what you think I thought. — Marguerite Kaye

We looked at each other for what seemed like an hour. He seemed to pity me, and I started to hate him, even though it is a cardinal sin to hate a priest, one of the deadliest, I do believe. — Matthew Quick

Comparison, a great teacher once told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game that we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others, we lose the freedom to shape our own lives. — James C. Collins

It is a cardinal sin to bore the reader. — Larry Niven

I committed a cardinal sin as a kid. I never spoke, and my mother thought there was something seriously wrong with me. A silent child is regarded as a problem in Ireland, and I just read all the time. — Ken Bruen

The cardinal sin is not being badly dressed, but wearing the right thing in the wrong place. — Edith Head

Every little girl 'did her knitting stint' each day. Idleness was a cardinal sin in pioneer times. — Anne Macdonald

The cardinal marketing sin is being boring. — Dan Kennedy

I crunch the assigned reading in my shaking hand, an article titled "Dan Quayle was right." It argued that children raised by single moms were destined for failure. Joined by my fellow students, we argue that our lives are not limited by our absent fathers. The teacher laughs awkwardly and backs away from our arguments. "For God's sake, don't take it personally." The cardinal sin of women and oppressed people everywhere: taking their lives personally.

- S.A. Williams — Erin Passons

If you call attention to yourself at the expense of the song, that's the cardinal sin. — Benmont Tench

Mercy can purge the soul of sin, making room for a fresh start. Truth is vital in order that we have an unvarying standard by which to determine what we are to be and to do and what we are to rid ourselves of. All the cardinal virtues, therefore, carry their own intrinsic as well as outward reward. A merciful man does do good to his own soul. — Neal A. Maxwell

They had lived to see their simple patriotism derided, their morality despised, their savings devalued. They caused no trouble. Millions of pounds of public money wasn't regularly siphoned into their neighbourhoods in the hope of bribing, cajoling or coercing them into civic virtue. If they protested that their cities had become alien, their children taught in overcrowded schools where 90 per cent of the children spoke no English, they were lectured about the cardinal sin of racism by those more expensively and comfortably circumstanced. Unprotected by accountants, they were the milch-cows of the rapacious Revenue. No lucrative industry of social concern and psychological analysis had grown up to analyse and condone their inadequacies on the grounds of deprivation or poverty. — P.D. James

It's such an honour being banned in Italy, the mother of sensuality. It's like being asked to straighten your tie in a bordello ... It's ironic that the pictures were removed on the complaint of a cardinal. I regard censorship as a cardinal sin. — Harold Town

Underestimation of nonconventional units or a guerrilla enemy by regular forces is a cardinal military sin. — Howard R. Simpson

Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design — Dieter Rams

that city, wherever it was, they had managed to create for themselves a pleasant, cultured way of life. And that was the cardinal sin for which they were now paying so dearly. — Miklos Nyiszli

There are two cardinal human sins out of which all others derive, deviate, and dissipate: impatience and lassitude (or perhaps nonchalance). On account of impatience they are driven out of paradise; on account of lassitude or nonchalance they do not return. Perhaps, however, only one main sense of sin is given: impatience. On account of impatience they are driven out, on account of impatience they do not turn back. — Franz Kafka

There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness. — Frank Capra

Stupidity - The top of the list for Satanic Sins. The Cardinal Sin of Satanism. It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid. — Anton Szandor LaVey

The cardinal sin in sports, what could really wreck it, is not cheating to win, which has gone on forever, but cheating to lose. That threatens a fundamental aspect of sports' appeal, which is their spontaneity. If games are fixed, they're no different from movies; they're scripted. — Michael Mandelbaum

That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community. — Condoleezza Rice

Self-deceit - It's in the "Nine Satanic Statements" but deserves to be repeated here. Another cardinal sin. We must not pay homage to any of the sacred cows presented to us, including the roles we are expected to play ourselves. The only time self-deceit should be entered into is when it's fun, and with awareness. But then, it's not self-deceit! — Anton Szandor LaVey

Impatience is the cardinal sin of youth. — M.T. Bass

God Almighty, I might've just committed a cardinal sin just by thinking it, but he was like Cam 2.0. — J. Lynn

He got fired because he didn't report the incident, and so no one else had the opportunity to learn from it. Not sharing an opportunity to learn is a cardinal sin." Cultures — Charles Duhigg

(He) committed the cardinal sin in a college atmosphere not only of being different but of being different in a way that left a lot of people with the impression that he thought he was better than they were. — John Feinstein

Terrorism is one of the cardinal sins that the Koran threatens with hellfire. — Fethullah Gulen

There is an air of grace and tradition The South takes pride in upholding. When all hell is breaking loose, southerners face the world with a smile. All anger, resentment, and feelings of hierarchy only flutter in bits of passive aggressive, light-hearted gossip. In southern culture, it is a cardinal sin to utter a single word without a sweet layer of sugarcoating. — Maggie Young

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge
he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil
he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor
he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire
he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy
all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is desired to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was
that robot of the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love
he was not man. — Ayn Rand

In zen, it is a cardinal sin to waste time. To waste time is to squander the here and now, which, if you think about it, is all that we have. — Philip Toshio Sudo

Immediately I give myself a little mental slap. Fishing for compliments is a cardinal sin. "Never mind, I was only joking. — Sally Thorne