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Quotes About Penitence

He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed he decided to append an eighth, regret.
~ Charles Frazier
Agenbite of Inwit
~ James Joyce
Tutti, tutti noi abbiamo fallito. Desideriamo tutti un castigo. Desideriamo tutti di farci carico di ogni tipo di penitenza, ma sai, figlia mia, che in amore -riesco a malapena a dirlo- ma in amore i nostri errori non sembrano durare molto a lungo".
~ Thornton Wilder
Let me be able to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present feelings, will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more gentle, less dignified, forgiveness. Tell her of my misery and my penitence—tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever.
~ Jane Austen
She felt all the force of that comparison; but not as her sister had hoped, to urge her to exertion now; she felt it with all the pain of continual self-reproach, regretted most bitterly that she had never exerted herself before; but it brought only the torture of penitence, without the hope of amendment. Her mind was so much weakened that she still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only dispirited her more.
~ Jane Austen
In whatever I may be thought to have been unnatural, unwise and indelicate, it is now my most fervent desire it may have a suitable impression on you - and on me, a penitent for every wrong thought and step.
~ Deborah Sampson
He prays best who, not asking God to do man's work, prays penitence, prays resolutions, and then prays deeds--thus supplicating with heart and head and hands.
~ Theodore Parker
I would mind it less, said Mrs. Westfall, if you looked a bit sorry or ashamed. The Virginian shook his head at her penitently. I'm tryin' to, he said
~ Owen Wister
they do not relish the repentance as much as they do the crime
~ Daniel Defoe
To give the history of a wicked life repented of, necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make as wicked as the real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give a beauty to the penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, if related with equal spirit and life.
~ Daniel Defoe
The Franco regime's imperative of "cleansing" repression borrowed heavily from an apocalyptic, manichean brand of Catholicism (harking back to the Counter-Reformation) with its dialectic of fire and sword, where the suffering of the "heretic", his or her "penitence" was a necessary part of the process.
~ Helen Graham
People will forgive a penitent enemy before they forgive a professed friend.
~ Tracy Hickman
Return'd so soon! Rather approached too late: the capron burns, the pig falls from the spit, the clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell; my mistress made it one upon my cheek: she is hot because the meat is cold; the meat is cold because you have no stomach, you have no stomach, having broke your fast; but we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray, are pentent for your default today.
~ William Shakespeare
If Dr. Allenby thought she had any concept of what guilt was, then she was fooling herself. Guilt was what kept you awake in the middle of the night or, if you managed to sleep, poisoned your dreams. Guilt intruded upon any happy moment, whispering in your ear that you had no right to pleasure. Guilt followed you down streets, interrupting the most mundane moments with remembrances of days and hours when you could have done something to prevent tragedy but chose to do nothing.
~ John Boyne
The heart that sins must sorrow.
~ James Allen
Our preaching does not stop with the law. That would lead to wounding without binding up, striking down and not healing, killing and not making alive, driving down to hell and not bringing back up, humbling and not exalting. Therefore, we must also preach grace and the promise of forgiveness--this is the means by which faith is awakened and properly taught. Without this word of grace, the law, contrition, penitence, and everything else are done and taught in vain.
~ Unknown
la nostalgia es la mayor de las penitencias que cumplen los hombres al paso de los años.
~ Unknown
O God, our merciful Father, by Your Holy Law do You work in us the true knowledge of our sin, that our heart may be penitent, and our soul humble before You. Blot out our iniquities with the blood of Your Son, cleanse our souls from the dark spots with which we have soiled them, and comfort us with the assurance of Your grace. Build Your Church with us and our children, that Your name may be glorified by many generations. Amen.
~ Martin Luther
He turned to her - his gesture a superb compound of relief, remorse, passionate candour and bewilderment touched with curiosity; confidence and perfect penitence. Against which Scylla had to brace herself. Against such bravura how dull truth seemed, and difficult to access. Never had the bottom of a well seemed less attractive. She must hear him first. She could go down later.
~ Mary Butts
salmos llamados «penitenciales» han sido
~ Matthew Henry
a county with a unique history of people starving and mortifying themselves for higher causes and principles, a political reflex that has twitched steadily down the years and seems rooted in some aggravated sense of sinfulness because, like no other county it is blistered with shrines and grottoes and prayer houses and hermitages just as it is crossed with pilgrim paths and penitential ways
~ Unknown
Unless we are prepared to see these events – the Jesus-events, the messianic moment – as the ultimate call to penitence, because they are the ultimate announcement of the arrival of God's kingdom, we will be bound to over-interpret other events to compensate.
~ Unknown
Guilt shall be his shackles, remorse his cell.
~ Unknown
As good heirs of the Bible, we think that a great misfortune necessarily follows a great infraction. In this respect the intellectual caste, in our world, is the penitential class par excellence, continuing the role of the clergy under the Old Regime. We have to call its members what they are: officials of original sin.
~ Pascal Bruckner