J. Robert Oppenheimer, witnessing the first test of a nuclear weapon, confessed to tasting sin. But he and all his colleagues knew from the beginning what lay waiting at the end of the project. And which was the stronger flavor, the sin, or the satisfaction of having stolen fire from the gods?
—Theodore Roszak
Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
—Robert Orben
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
—Walter Bagehot
Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you—and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist.
—Muriel Spark
The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.
—Oscar Wilde
There is no music like that music, no drama like the drama of the saints rejoicing, the sinners moaning, the tambourines racing, and all those voices coming together and crying holy unto the Lord.… I have never seen anything to equal the fire and excitement that sometimes, without warning, fill a church, causing the church, as Leadbelly and so many others have testified, to "rock.
—James Baldwin
In a virtuous community, men of sense and of principle will always be placed at the head of affairs. In a declining state of public morals, men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay our hands on our own hearts and say, "Here is the sin that makes the public sin.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
—H. L. Mencken
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
—Simone Weil
The wages of sin are unreported.
—Unknown
Ignorance is not innocence but sin.
—Robert Browning
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
—William Shakespeare
Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.
—Marlene Dietrich
In art, the obvious is a sin.
—Edward Dmytryk