Quotes & Sayings About Mortal Sin

We drank the blood of our enemies. That's why you see Gnostics so hunted. The sacrament of the Eucharist is really drinking the blood of the enemy. The Grail, the Sangraal, is the bloody vehicle. Why else guard it so sacredly? Why should the black honor-guard ride half a continent, half a splintering Empire, stone night and winter day, if it's only for the touch of sweet lips on a humble bowl? No, it's mortal sin they're carrying: to swallow the enemy, down into the slick juicery to be taken in by all the cells. Your officially defined 'mortal sin,' that is. A sin against you. A section of your penal code, that's all. — Thomas Pynchon

Although the sinner does not believe in Hell, he shall nevertheless go there if he has the misfortune to die in mortal sin. — Anthony Mary Claret

Unfortunately we find systems of education today that have departed so far from the plain truth that they now teach us to be proud of what we know and ashamed of ignorance. This is doubly corrupt. It is corrupt not only because pride is in itself a mortal sin, but also because to teach pride in knowledge is to put an effective barrier against any advance upon what is already known, since it makes one ashamed to look beyond the bounds imposed by one's ignorance.

To any person prepared to enter with respect into the realm of this great and universal ignorance, the secrets of being will eventually unfold, and they will do so in a measure according to his freedom from natural and indoctrinated shame in his respect of their revelation. — George Spencer-Brown

I mean, I am totally not one of those prudes who believe having sex as a teenager is some kind of mortal sin or social death. I don't have a problem with sex. I just don't happen to be having it. And if I were having sex, I certainly wouldn't be getting it on in an airplane bathroom. Who wants to get down and dirty in a place so ... cramped and dirty? — Lauren Morrill

Venial sin becomes mortal sin when one approves it as an end ... — Thomas Aquinas

Tourism is a mortal sin. — Werner Herzog

the only mortal sin is giving up. — Stephen King

It cast an unholy glow all around him - which was entirely appropriate, because Julian was as seductive as mortal sin and as haughty as the devil. — L.J.Smith

Abel was also the first of the human family to experience physical death- and it was through murder! He suffered death because of another's sin, the transgression of his elder brother Cain, who, in a fit of rage, killed him in cold blood. At the same time, thanks to faith in the sin-offering, he overcame death. The first man to descend into the Valley of the Shadow of Death was the first one to triumphantly march straight through it into the Paradise of Glory. He stepped from the excruciating pain of mortal manslaughter's hate into the exquisite land of eternal delights prepared by the Father's love! He led the way, like a pioneer, for all subsequent generations of men and women of faith throughout human history. — Robert L. Sumner

I regard as a mortal sin not only the lying of the senses in matters of love, but also the illusion which the senses seek to create where love is only partial. I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one's being, or else live, come what may, a life of complete chastity. — George Sand

Religion invents a problem where none exists by describing the wicked as also made in the image of god and the sexually nonconformist as existing in a state of incurable mortal sin that can incidentally cause floods and earthquakes. — Christopher Hitchens

The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God. — Martin Luther

If you are unconscious, unaware, you are living only in the body, the mortal. And a person who lives for the body, in the body, and only for the body, lives in sin. — Rajneesh

Jesus did not pay the penalty for our misdeeds so we can continue disobeying God with abandon; rather, in dying on the cross, Jesus not only canceled our spiritual debt but also cured our spiritual disease. When we put our trust in Christ, He forgives our sins and also begins the work of changing us from the inside to become holy and loving like Him, and like God our Father. Jesus does this through the Holy Spirit, whom He sent. Salvation by grace does not mean we stay impure sinners forever. Rather, it means that God forgives all our sins and does for us what we cannot do for ourselves by paying the penalty for our sins and working to eliminate sin from our lives. He does this in two stages: while we are mortal, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts so that we begin to live in a way that is more pleasing to God, even though we still commit sin; and then in the resurrection at the end of history, we will be made morally and spiritually perfect beings. — Nabeel Qureshi

The power of sin and death has been eclipsed by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit breathes life into our mortal, sin-infested bodies - thanks to what Jesus has done for us. By sending His Son in "the likeness of sinful flesh," God judges sin finally and completely. The sins of the world are concentrated and condemned in the flesh of Jesus as He hangs on the cross. So now there is no condemnation remaining for those who've entered into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. — Anonymous

Waste of resources is a mortal sin at IKEA. — Ingvar Kamprad

A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal. — Mary Baker Eddy

Woe to those who die in mortal sin! — Francis Of Assisi

Without sanctifying grace it is not possible to refrain long from mortal sin. — Thomas Aquinas

The state of grace is nothing other than purity, and it gives heaven to those who clothe themselves in it. Holiness, therefore, is simply the state of grace purified, illuminated, beautified by the most perfect purity, exempt not only from mortal sin but also from the smallest faults; purity will make saints of you! Everything lies in this! — Peter Julian Eymard

Arturo Bandini was pretty sure that he wouldn't go to hell when he died. The way to hell was the committing of mortal sin. He had committed many, he believed, but the confessional had saved him. He always got to confession on time - that is, before he died. And he knocked on wood whenever he thought of it - he always would get there on time - before he died. So Arturo was pretty sure he wouldn't go to hell when he died. For two reasons. The confessional, and the fact that he was a fast runner. — John Fante

Saint Teresa, as the Roman Rota attests, never fell into any mortal sin; but still Our Lord showed her the place prepared for her in Hell; not because she deserved Hell, but because, had she not risen from the state of lukewarmness in which she lived, she would in the end have lost the grace of God and been damned. — Alphonsus Liguori

Half-instructed confessors have done my soul great harm; for I could not always have such learned ones as I would have desired. They certainly did not wish to deceive me, but the fact was that they knew no better. Of something which was a venial sin, they said it was no sin, and out of a very grave mortal sin they made a venial sin. This has done me such harm, that my speaking here of so great an evil, as a warning to others, will be readily understood. — Teresa Of Avila

I cannot understand how anyone conscious of mortal sin can laugh or be merry. — Thomas Aquinas

Despair is deadly sin, but worse, it is mortal folly. — Ellis Peters

The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic. — Willa Cather

Marital intercourse is certainly holy, lawful and praiseworthy in itself and profitable to society, yet in certain circumstances it can prove dangerous, as when through excess the soul is made sick with venial sin, or through the violation and perversion of its primary end, killed by mortal sin; such perversion, detestable in proportion to its departure from the true order, being always mortal sin, for it is never lawful to exclude the primary end of marriage which is the procreation of children. — Saint Francis De Sales

A successful actor is praised for never giving up his dreams to become someone else for a living but to dream to be an unmasked artist is a mortal sin in a consumerist society. Artists don't consume; they create things that can't be consumed with riches. You consume art by seeing, by listening, by feeling, never by buying. — Bruce Crown

The idea here is that we are less wicked than we are weak. As sarx - as mortal animals - we are playthings of the devil, who uses the fear of death to push and pull our survival instincts (our fleshly, sarx-driven passions) to keep us as "slaves to sin. — Richard Beck

Charity is not a potency of the soul, because if it were it would be natural. Nor is it a passion, because it is not in a sensitive potency in which are all passions. Nor is it a habit, because a habit is removed with difficulty; charity, however, is easily lost through one act of mortal sin. Therefore charity is not something created in the soul. — Thomas Aquinas

In practice, sin's counterfeit of God's love is impossible to perfect, for perfection here ends in the void, the undoing of the bonds of creation. The soul that falls away into sin continues to love mortal beloveds, but its attachments lack measure, and so its love goes begging. It wanders about aimlessly in a 'wasteland of need' (regio egestatis). — James Wetzel

This I say, because God showed me somewhat of his truth, in order that I might know what man is without him; that is, when the soul is found in mortal sin, at that time, it is so monstrous and horrible to behold, that it is impossible to imagine anything equally so. — Catherine Of Genoa

St. Augustine and St. Thomas define mortal sin to be a turning away from God: that is, the turning of one's back upon God, leaving the Creator for the sake of the creature. What punishment would that subject deserve who, while his king was giving him a command, contemptuously turned his back upon him to go and transgress his orders? This is what the sinner does; and this is punished in hell with the pain of loss, that is, the loss of God, a punishment richly deserved by him who in this life turns his back upon his sovereign good. — Alphonsus Liguori

You said earlier you don't even know what kind of ice cream you like and that's basically a mortal sin, so we're here to find out! — Stormy Smith

For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Such sins, even if they do not kill all grace in us, do harm, nevertheless; and though they are only venial in themselves, they make us apt, ready, and inclined to lose grace and to fall into mortal sin. — Johannes Tauler

Not doing anything is doing something and choosing to look away is a passive but no less mortal sin. — Bill Maher

That the mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh is the constant duty of believers. — John Owen

Drive-in, you guzzle gin, commit a little mortal sin. — Jimmy Buffett

He came down from the North to Paris with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot. — James Goldman

Mike Shea became a medic during the war and was now married, working for Pfizer. To this day he can't look at her straight. To this day she can't quite convince herself that the sin was as grave as it seemed. (She thought, in fact, of telling the priest as he whispered his furious admonitions that she weighed barely a hundred pounds and was as thin as a boy and if he would adjust his imagination accordingly and see the buds of her breasts and her flat stomach and the bony points of her hips, he would understand that even buck naked, her body was not made for mortal sin.) She can — Alice McDermott

A multitude of souls fall into the depths of Hell, and it is of the faith that all who die in mortal sin are condemned for ever and ever. According to statistics, approximately 80,000 persons die every day. How many of these will die in mortal sin, and how many will be condemned! For, as their lives have been, so also will be their end. — Anthony Mary Claret

I have seen a place-its name is Eternal Hatred It is built in the deepest abyss of the stones of mortal sin. Pride was the first stone-this was seen in Lucifer. — Mechthild Of Magdeburg

He who devoutly hears holy Mass will receive a great vigor to enable him to resist mortal sin, and there shall be pardoned to him all venial sins which he may have committed up to that hour. — Saint Augustine

Ashes have no fear to burn in hell
In your heart's paradise angels dwell
Rib cage fastens all sins of the wrong
Your bones will sing you mortality's song — Munia Khan

After coming to faith, no one should think that sin can be taken lightly. Sin is truly sin, whether it is committed before or after one comes to know Christ. God always hates sin. Every sin is a mortal sin - a sin that leads to death - as far as the act itself is concerned. But it's not a mortal sin for the believer. Christ the Reconciler atoned for sin by his death. For unbelievers, not only are all of their sins mortal ones, but even their good works are sins. As Paul says in Romans, Everything that does not come from faith is sin. — Martin Luther

When you see a condemned man on his way to the gallows, it moves you to pity. If you could do something to free him, you would do it. Well, brothers and sisters, when I see a person in mortal sin, I see someone drawing nearer with every step to the gallows of hell. And seeing him in this unhappy state, I happen to know the way to free him: that he be converted to God, ask God's pardon, and make a good confession. Woe betide me if he does not. — Anthony Mary Claret

Anna, who has always been devout, knows well that Despair is a mortal sin, and now she knows that it is a luxury, as well. — Robertson Davies

By way of parenthesis let me say that this hand on the tomb has a lovely lesson for all those unfortunate members of Christ who have fallen into mortal sin. In them, Jesus lies dead - as dead as he was on this Sabbath of twenty centuries ago. But on them, as on this tomb, the hand of Mary, the Refuge of Sinners, rests, awaiting and praying for the Resurrection of Christ within them! May those who are in such a state fell that hand as they read this book, and bring Christ to life within them by asking Mary to help them make a perfect act of contrition, which is an act of love, this moment. She can grant such a grace; for she is Mediatrix of all grace! — M. Raymond

the Catholic Church not only didn't oppose abortion but actually regulated it until the mid-nineteenth century. It was made a mortal sin mostly for population reasons.8 Napoleon III wanted more soldiers, and Pope Pius IX wanted all the teaching positions in the French schools - plus the doctrine of papal infallibility - so they traded. Also, — Gloria Steinem

The Savior desires to save us from our inadequacies as well as our sins. Inadequacy is not the same as being sinful - we have far more control over the choice to sin than we may have over our innate capacity ... A sense of falling short or falling down is not only natural but essential to the mortal experience. Still, after all we can do, the Atonement can fill that which is empty, straighten our bent parts, and make strong that which is weak. — Bruce C. Hafen

I have just committed the mortal sin of laughing in the Members' Library. No-one around here has done that for a while. — Nadine Dorries

Only those elements time cannot wear: The Angels, the Empyrean, and the First Matter are the elements time cannot wear, for they will last to all time. Man, however, in his mortal state, is not eternal. The Gate of Hell, therefore, was created before man. The theological point is worth attention. The doctrine of Original Sin is, of course, one familiar to many creeds. Here, however, it would seem that the preparation for damnation predates Original Sin. True, in one interpretation. Hell was created for the punishment of the Rebellious Angels and not for man. Had man not sinned, he would never have known Hell. But on the other hand, Dante's God was one who knew all, and knew therefore that man would indeed sin. The theological problem is an extremely delicate one. — Dante Alighieri

Oh! Could you but see the beauty of a soul in the grace of God, you would be so much enamored of it that you would do nothing else but ask souls of God; and, on the contrary, could a soul in mortal sin be placed before your eyes, you would do nothing but weep, and you would hate sin more than the devil himself, and always pray for the conversion of sinners. — Mary Magdalene

The great drama will end, not with "saved souls" being snatched up into heaven, away from the wicked earth and the mortal bodies which have dragged them down into sin, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, so that "the dwelling of God is with humans" (Revelation 21:3). — N. T. Wright

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. — Francis Of Assisi

By liberty of conscience, we understand not only a mere liberty of the mind, in believing or disbelieving this or that principle or doctrine; but the exercise of ourselves in a visible way of worship, upon our believing it to be indispensably required at our hands, that if we neglect it for fear of favor of any mortal man, we sin and incur divine wrath. — William Penn

There *is* no mortal sin. There are only *souls*, lost in a maze that someone *else* has made for them. — Mike Carey

Meditate on the horrors of Hell, which will last for eternity because of one easily-committed mortal sin. Try hard to be among the few who are chosen. Think of the eternal flames of Hell, and how few there are that are saved. — Benedict Joseph Labre

And when children begin to use their reason, fathers and mothers should take great pains to fill their hearts with the fear of God. This the good Queen Blanche did most earnestly by St. Louis, her son: witness her oft-repeated words, "My son, I would sooner see you die than guilty of a mortal sin;" words which sank so deeply into the saintly monarch's heart, that he himself said there was no day on which they did not recur to his mind, and strengthen him in treading God's ways. — Saint Francis De Sales

I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one's being ... — George Sand

Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things, — Thomas Aquinas

A good story is a dream shared by the author and the reader. Anything that wakes the reader from the dream is a mortal sin. — Victor J. Banis

God planteth in mortal men the cause of sin whensoever he wills utterly to destroy a house. — Aeschylus

If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin — Edna O'Brien

This mortal probation is a brief period-just a short span, linking the eternity of the past with the eternity of the future. Yet it was to be a period of tremendous importance. It is, in fact, the most vital period of our entire eternal existence. In this mortal state we come face to face with innumerable temptations and pressures. Sometimes we come in contact with advocates of wrongdoing, disobedience, and sin. Lucifer is going about tempting those who can be tempted to see if he can lead them astray. — ElRay L. Christiansen

To aid and abet in the destruction of a single species or in the extermination of a single tribe is to commit a crime against God, a mortal sin against Mother Nature. Better by far to sacrifice in some degree the interests of mechanical civilization, curtail our gluttonous appetite for things, ever more things, learn to moderate our needs, and most important, and not difficult, learn to control, limit and gradually reduce our human numbers. We humans swarm over the planet like a plague of locusts, multiplying and devouring. There is no justice, sense or decency in this mindless global breeding spree, this obscene anthropoid fecundity, this industrialized mass production of babies and bodies, ever more bodies and babies. The man-centered view of the world in anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, antinature, antilife, and
antihuman. — Edward Abbey

The sixth deadly sin is named by the church acedia or sloth. In the world it calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. It is the accomplice of the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for. We have known it far too well for many years. The only thing perhaps that we have not known about it is that it is a mortal sin. — Dorothy L. Sayers

God's eye does not slumber. He knows every sin that is hidden from mortal eye. — Ellen G. White

He turned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien. He cared little that he was in mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood. — James Joyce

It must be said that charity can, in no way, exist along with mortal sin. — Thomas Aquinas

An Italian proverb says, In men every mortal sin is venial; in woman every venial sin is mortal. And a German axiom, that There are only two good women in the world: one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found. — George Augustus Henry Sala

A precept or command is a general teaching of God, obligating every man under pain of mortal sin - namely, in cases in which he has fallen away from the command. Hence, the saints who for a period of their life lived hypocritically sinned mortally for that period. So also the damned, by persistent false living, sin persistently in Hell. — Jan Hus

Keep this in mind, for it is very important advice, so do not neglect it until you find you have such a fixed determination not to offend the Lord that you would rather lose a thousand lives and be persecuted by the whole world, than commit one mortal sin, and until you are most careful not to commit venial sins. — Teresa Of Avila

In every grave on earth's green sward is a tiny seed of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, and that seed cannot perish. It will germinate when the warm south wind of Christ's return brings back the spring-tide to this cold sin-cursed earth of ours; and then they that are in their graves, and we who shall lie down in ours, will feel in our mortal bodies the power of His resurrection, and will come forth to life immortal. — David McMurtrie Gregg

Man is mortal. This is his fate. Man pretends not to be mortal. That is his sin. Man is a creature of time and place, whose perspectives and insights are invariably conditioned by his immediate circumstances. — Sylvan Barnet

While the soul is in mortal sin, nothing can profit it; none of its good works merit an eternal reward, since they do not proceed from God as their first principle, and by Him alone is our virtue real virtue. — Saint Teresa Of Avila

He burned to appease the fierce longing of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien. He cared little that he was in mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood. Beside the savage desire within him to realise the enormities which he brooded on nothing was sacred. — James Joyce

It is a mortal sin to discard the elderly. — Pope Francis

Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' ... he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. — Elmore Leonard

Thank and glorify His Beloved Son, who, with indescribable suffering, gave His life on Calvary's cross to pay the debt of mortal sin. He it was who, through His atoning sacrifice, broke the bonds of death and with godly power rose triumphant from the tomb. He is our Redeemer, the Redeemer of all mankind. He is the Savior of the world. He is the Son of God, the Author of our salvation. — Gordon B. Hinckley

No relief was forthcoming from my then-Catholic faith, which said the practice of homosexuality was a 'mortal sin' subject to damnation. — James McGreevey

You are a murderer! You have committed the
one mortal sin!
You have killed the love-life in me. Do
you understand what that means? The Bible speaks of a mysterious
sin for which there is no forgiveness. I have never understood
what it could be; but now I understand. The great, unpardonable
sin is to murder the love-life in a human soul. — Henrik Ibsen

I once heard a spiritual man say that he was not so much astonished at the things done by a soul in mortal sin as at the things not done by it. May God, in his mercy, deliver us from such great evil, for there is nothing in the whole of our lives that so thoroughly deserves to be called evil as this, since it brings endless and eternal evils in its train. — Teresa Of Avila

The inclination to digress is human. But the dramatist must avoid it even more strenuously than the saint must avoid sin, for while sin may be venial, digression is mortal. — W. Somerset Maugham

Using adverbs is a mortal sin. — Elmore Leonard

True scientists consider anthropomorphism to be something of a mortal sin and ostracize scientists who knowingly employ it in their work. — Bruce H. Lipton

Jesus Christ was the only one capable of performing the magnificent Atonement because He was the only perfect man and the Only Begotten Son of God the Father. He received His commission for this essential work from His Father before the world was established. His perfect mortal life devoid of sin, the shedding of His blood, His suffering in the garden and upon the cross, His voluntary death, and the Resurrection of His body from the tomb made possible a full Atonement for people of every generation and time. — Cecil O. Samuelson

Aren't Cherubim those cute little angels?" I asked. His brow raised. "There is no such thing as a cute, little Cherubim. They are actually very offended how the mortal world has painted them to be as such. Cherubim are large, strong, and powerful beings. They are skilled warriors who surround the Creator, and are highly trained to defend him from any contaminations of sin. — Cameo Renae

He would be guilty of mortal sin, because he exposes himself to the danger of grievously offending God. Hence, before he acts he must lay aside the doubt; and if he has not hitherto done so, he must confess it, at least, as it is before God. But the scrupulous, who have doubts about everything, must follow another rule: they must obey their confessor. When he tells them to conquer their doubts, and to act against scruples, they should obey with exactness; otherwise they will render themselves unable and unfit to perform any spiritual exercise. — Alphonsus Liguori