Unpardonable Quotes & Sayings

To permit this gross new revelation to fade, or be forgiven, would be to devalue our most essential standard of what constitutes the unpardonable. And for what? For the reputation of a man who turns out to be not even a Holocaust denier but a Holocaust affirmer. There has to be a moral limit, and either this has to be it or we must cease pretending to ourselves that we observe one. — Christopher Hitchens

I do not know what she was thinking, but I was remembering the years we have lived together, yet never together, and what a waste they have been
of each other, and of love, which is the most unpardonable waste there is. Love and time, those are the only two things in all the world and all of life that cannot be bought, but only spent. — Gary Jennings

If nothing is to be done in the given situation, he must invent plausible reasons for doing nothing; and if something must be done, he must suggest the something. The unpardonable sin is to propose nothing, when action is imperative. — Charles Edward Merriam

I do not know of any, excepting the unpardonable sin, that is greater than the sin of ingratitude. — Brigham Young

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. — Thomas Huxley

When a sinner has any just sense of his condition, as alienated from a holy God, he will not be apt to think of the unpardonable sin. — Ichabod Spencer

Hotel's full up, I'm afraid, Mr. Roper, Jonathan rehearsed in another last-ditch effort to fend off the inevitable. Herr Meister is desolated. A temporary clerk has made an unpardonable error. However, we have managed to obtain rooms for you at the Baur au Lac, et cetera. — John Le Carre

Science was tearing through the 'fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs' to behold a new cosmos, in which our Earth is merely an 'eccentric speck' - a world of evolution 'and unchanging causation'. It invited new ways of thinking. It demanded a new rationale for belief. With science's truths the only accessible ones, 'blind faith' was no longer admirable but 'the one unpardonable sin'. — Adrian Desmond

People will forgive anything but beauty and talent. So I am doubly unpardonable. — James Whistler

Children never forget injustice. They forgive heaps of things grown-up people mind; but that sin is the unpardonable sin. — Virginia Woolf

Forgiveness is the one unpardonable sin. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Are you perhaps one of those who worries about having committed the unpardonable sin? If so, you should face squarely what the Bible says on this subject, not what you may have heard from others. The unpardonable sin is rejecting the truth about Christ. It is rejecting, completely and finally, the witness of the Holy Spirit, which declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who alone can save us from our sins. Have you rejected Christ in your own life, and said in your heart that what the Bible teaches about Him is a lie? Then I tell you as solemnly and as sincerely as I know how that you are in a very dangerous position. I urge you without delay to accept the truth about Christ, and to come to humble confession and repentance and faith. It would be tragic for you to persist in your unbelief, and eventually go into eternity without hope and without God. — Billy Graham

But in such cases as these a good memory is unpardonable. — Jane Austen

the Church is a kingdom not of this world.' If it is not of this world, then it cannot exist on earth at all. In the Gospel, the words 'not of this world' are not used in that sense. To play with such words is indefensible. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to set up the Church upon earth. The Kingdom of Heaven, of course, is not of this world, but in Heaven; but it is only entered through the Church which has been founded and established upon earth. And so a frivolous play upon words in such a connection is unpardonable and improper. The Church is, in truth, a kingdom and ordained to rule, and in the end must undoubtedly become the kingdom ruling over all the earth. For that we have the divine promise." He — Anton Chekhov

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows. — Ambrose Bierce

Four Unpardonable Sins of a Communicator: being unprepared, uncommitted, uninteresting, or uncomfortable. — John C. Maxwell

You should have bought the bracelet, you know," he told me, in a contemplative tone. "The stones would match your eyes." Pride kept me from saying that the trinket had been too expensive for my purse. I took a small step backwards and he let his hand fall, his expression unconcerned. "I bought this, instead." I held up my book to show him. "You can read, then." "My father was a scrivener. He viewed illiteracy as an unpardonable sin." "You were fortunate. I cannot imagine you would find much to read in your uncle's house." I smiled, in spite of myself. "Very little." "Then you must come visit me at the Hall. I have a good library. You would be welcome to borrow anything you wanted. — Susanna Kearsley

I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. — G.K. Chesterton

How I envy those clerks who go by to their offices in the morning! There's the day's work cut out for them; no question of mood and feeling; they have just to work at something, and when the evening comes, they have earned their wages, and they are free to rest and enjoy themselves. What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of support! When the most trivial accident may at any time prove fatal to one's power of work for weeks or months. No, that is the unpardonable sin! To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a brutal folly. — George Gissing

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. — Oscar Wilde

In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind and this trade [in Indian slaves] as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them. — Bartolome De Las Casas

She was the lightning, he was the thunder. Together they were a force of nature itself, so beautiful, yet full of unpardonable destruction. — K.F. Breene

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime. — Romain Rolland

Imagine a crime series in which, every week, there is a white suspect and a black suspect. And every week, lo and behold, the black one turns out to have done it. Unpardonable, of course. And my point is that you could not defend it by saying: "But it's only fiction, only entertainment." — Richard Dawkins

A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act. — Edmund Burke

Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life. Ten years ago such revelations as these of the Erie Railway would have sent a shudder through the community, and would have placed a stigma on every man who had had to do them. Now they merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations. — Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

I often think of death.
True.
Suicide is a reasonable option.
True.
My sins are unpardonable.
I stare at the question.
My sins are unpardonable.
I stare at the question.
My sins are unpardonable.
I leave it blank. — James Frey

There is no vice, of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excited so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbors, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor [can] humility mitigate. — Arthur Schopenhauer

All who call the Holy Ghost a creature we pity, on the ground that, by this utterance, they are falling into the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against Him. — Saint Basil

The only crime of the Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. I do not curse you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for being safe! — G.K. Chesterton

The prevalent custom of educating young women only for marriage, and not for the duties and responsibilities consequent on marriage
only for appendages and dead weights to husbands
of bringing them up without an occupation, profession, or employment, and thus leaving them dependent on anyone but themselves
is an enormous evil, and an unpardonable sin. — Harriot Kezia Hunt

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

The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices. — Aleister Crowley

Convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication. — Jane Austen

We live in a world that treats the dead better than the living. We, the living are askers of questions and givers of answers, and we have other grave defects unpardonable by a system that believes death, like money, improves people. — Eduardo Galeano

We were quite naturally unhappy; feeling a definite need, unbearably keen at moments, which was never to be satisfied. But that was recognizable pain, and the sharp pang grew to be almost welcome in the midst of the sultry and opaque life which was not felt, had nothing real in it, and yet swam about us, and choked us and blinded us. All these tears and groans, reproaches and protestations of affection, high talk of duty and work and living for others, were doubtless what we should feel if we felt properly, and yet we had but a dull sense of gloom which could not honestly be referred to the dead; unfortunately it did not quicken our feeling for the living; but hideous as it was, obscured both living and dead; and for long did unpardonable mischief by substituting for the shape of a true and most vivid mother, nothing better than an unlovable phantom. — Virginia Woolf

We do not charge an author with unpardonable ignorance because his twelfth-century characters never stop arguing about The Smiths. It is possible that the writer, having only a feeble grasp of history, really does believe that The Smiths were around in the twelfth century, or that Morrissey is such a superlative genius as to be timeless. But the fact that this occurs in a work of fiction inclines us to the charitable view that the distortion is deliberate. This is highly convenient for poets and novelists. Literature, like an absolute monarch among his fawning courtiers, is where you can never be wrong. — Terry Eagleton

'What is the Unpardonable Sin' asked the lime-burner 'It is a sin that grew within my own breast', replied Ethan Brand 'The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God'. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that's supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump - eh? A blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night and think of it - years after - and go hot and cold all over. — Joseph Conrad

Abroad it is our habit to regard all other travelers in the light of personal and unpardonable grievances. They are intruders into our chosen realms of pleasure, they jar upon our sensibilities, they lessen our meager share of comforts, they are everywhere in our way, they are always an unnecessary feature in the landscape. — Agnes Repplier

I am not a fan of people who abuse service staff. In fact, I find it intolerable. It's an unpardonable sin as far as I'm concerned, taking out personal business or some other kind of dissatisfaction on a waiter or busboy. — Anthony Bourdain

The real secret of happiness is simply this: to be willing to live and let live, and to know very clearly in one's own mind that the unpardonable sin is to be an unpleasant person. — Galen Starr Ross

But verily that sudden rushing wind was, as if an angel had come upon me; but both it, and the salutation, I will leave until the day of judgment: only this I say, it commanded a great calm in my soul; it persuaded me there might be hope: it showed me, as I thought, what the sin unpardonable was, and that my soul had yet the blessed privilege to flee to Jesus Christ for mercy. — John Bunyan

I have seen that every one forgives much in themselves that they find unpardonable in other people. — Amelia Barr

Laura began to model herself more and more on those around her; to grasp that the unpardonable sin is to vary from the common mould. — Henry Handel Richardson

Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin. — Theodore Roosevelt

In this town you can be a wife-beating, manic-depressive crack-head and everyone opens their arms to you. They say, "Hey, pal, don't worry about it. We'll get you into recovery. It's all part of the journey." But if you become a born-again Christian and love Jesus Christ and want to share that with other people, they say, "You've committed the unpardonable sin. — Kirk Cameron

I am not sure just what the unpardonable sin is, but I believe it is a disposition to evade the payment of small bills. — Elbert Hubbard

Now listen to me, Buddy: there is only one unpardonable sin - deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never. — Truman Capote

With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and she had not quite done nothing - for she had done mischief. — Jane Austen

It is unpardonable conceit not to laugh at your own jokes. Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for one's soul. Do not fancy you can be a detached wit and avoid being a buffoon; you cannot. If you are the Court Jester you must be the Court Fool. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless. — G.K. Chesterton

The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are faith, hope and charity. Now ... the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such as justice and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mystical virtues of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues. And the second evident fact, which is even more evident, is the fact that the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and that the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be ... charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all. — G.K. Chesterton

My life and work have been far from free of blemish, and so I think it would be unpardonable for a biographer not to dish up the dirt. — William Styron

The greatest duty of mankind lies in the proper uprearing of our children. The fact is recognized, but is the duty fulfilled? Do we rear our children as we should? There is but one answer: We fail. Teaching them many things for their good, we yet keep from them ignorantly, foolishly, with a hesitancy and neglect unpardonable - knowledge, the possession of which is essential for their future welfare. — George F. Butler

There are two unpardonable sins in this world
success and failure. — George Horace Lorimer

Extremism is the pursuit of the presidency is an unpardonable vice. Moderation in the affairs of the nation is the highest virtue. — Lyndon B. Johnson

The most unpardonable privilege that men enjoy is their magnanimity. — Germaine Greer

No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. — Victor Hugo

It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable. — Agnes Repplier

To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable. — James Lee Burke

We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called 'isolationism.' — Pat Buchanan

(in some cases) ... a good memory is unpardonable — Jane Austen

I'm truthful
which is very nearly unpardonable in civilized society. — Lisa Kleypas

How unpardonable would it have been in you to have turned out a blockhead. How — David McCullough

The children of the white families in town were not permitted to associate with me, because my father was committing the then unpardonable crime, in Southern eyes, of educating negroes. — Lee De Forest

Children are guilty of unpardonable rudeness when they spit in the face of a companion; neither are they excusable who spit from windows or on walls or furniture. — Jean-Baptiste De La Salle

He was, however, obliged to leave the university, because Nathaniel's story had created a sensation, and it was universally considered a quite unpardonable trick to smuggle a wooden doll into respectful tea parties in place of a living person. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought. — Emma Goldman

Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet. Yet, as far as the play goes does it make any difference whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote it? Would it make any difference to the actors if their parts happened out of nothingness, if they found themselves acting on the stage because of some gross and unpardonable accident? Would it make any difference if the playwright gave them the lines or whether they composed them themselves, so long as the lines were properly spoken? Would it make any difference to the characters if A Midsummer Night's Dream was really a dream? — Lewis Mumford

There is only one unpardonable sin, and that is to withhold pardon from others. — Robert Farrar Capon

( ... ) I let go, crying and unable to stop because God was such a dirty crook, contemptible skunk, that's what he was for doing that thing to that woman. Come down out of the skies, you God, come on down and I'll hammer your face all over the city of Los Angeles, you miserable unpardonable prankster. If it wasn't for you, this woman would not have been so maimed, and neither would the world, ( ... ) — John Fante

Sometimes we bring to a struggle or cause the gifts we see most clearly, a courage, a strength, or a charm others have told us we have. But often we find more is asked of us than that, more than we intended or thought we possessed. We are asked to offer that which we thought dearest, to forgive what seemed unpardonable, to face what we feared the most and endure it. Sometimes we have to travel to the last step a path that was not of our own choosing. But I promise you this ... it will lead to a greater joy in the end. The difficulty is that the end is beyond our sight, it is a matter of faith, not of knowledge. — Anne Perry

In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or, as it might be phrased in Latin form, no child's behind left. — Christopher Hitchens

The unpardonable sin involves the total and irrevocable rejection of Jesus Christ. — Billy Graham

I spent my entire career trying to protect the Constitution, the civil rights and the civil liberties of American citizens and people who are here lawfully. I, as chair of this commission, would not be a party to any system that I felt was an unpardonable intrusion into the private lives of people. If I felt that what we are recommending would be such an intrusion I can assure you that recommendation would never have seen the light of day, not even as a pilot program. — Barbara Jordan

She'd been real melancholy in the fall - religious melancholy - it ran in her family. Her father worried so much over believing that he had committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum. — L.M. Montgomery

There is only one unpardonable sin
deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. — Truman Capote

Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to go about unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled dog. — Thomas Huxley

Submission to poverty is the unpardonable sin against the body. Submission to unhappiness is the unpardonable sin against the spirit. — Rebecca West

Oh! I cannot now express what then I saw and felt of the steadiness of Jesus Christ, the rock of man's salvation: What was done, could not be undone, added to, nor altered. I saw, indeed, that sin might drive the soul beyond Christ, even the sin which is unpardonable; but woe to him that was so driven, for the word would shut him out. — John Bunyan

Coercion. The unpardonable crime. — Dorothy Richardson

It is to be hoped you are not 'intellectual,' which is an unpardonable trait — Mary MacLane

Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death. — Morrissey

Cannabis, just like morphine, has its usage in medicine. It's unpardonable that authorities forbid sick people access to this medicament and in majesty of law permit to sell cigarettes. — Jerzy Vetulani

There is nothing so unpardonable as to consent to a senseless, aimless and purposeless life. Helen Keller — Robin S. Sharma

And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept. — Jean Cocteau

Cruelty is the only thing that strikes me as completely unforgivable. The unpardonable sin. — Rae Foley

Mercy is a vice, a pretension to powers we do not have. Those who give mercy commit an unpardonable offense to the victim. And that is not our duty here on earth. — Mario Puzo

When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed to it; instead of which, no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies. That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate prejudices between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable. — Thomas Paine