quotations about repentance
Is not a man's walking, in truth, always that: a succession of falls? Man can do no other. In this wild element of Life, he has to struggle onwards; now fallen, deep-abased; and ever, with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle again still onwards.
THOMAS CARLYLE
"The Hero as Prophet", Sartor Resartus
If one could wallow amid filth for half a life and then wash himself clean in a day, then sin would be no worse than dirt on the hands which water can cleanse in a minute. Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Repentance is nothing but mockery when it comes too late.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Bad men are full of repentance.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Repentance is the turning of the soul from the way of midnight to the point of the coming sun.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
We sin with facility, but repentance is a slow process; as it is easy enough to swallow poison, though the cure of its evil effects may be long and doubtful.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust out all upon.
LAURENCE STERNE
Sermon XXXVII, Sermons
The forests of the world are burning now
And you make late repentance for the loss.
But all the trees of God would clap their hands,
The very stones themselves would shout and sing,
If you could covenant to love these lands
And recognize in Christ their lord and king.
MALCOLM GUITE
The Word in the Wilderness
Repentance is getting out of one train and getting into the other. You are in the wrong train; you are in the broad path that takes you down to the pit of hell. Get out of it to-day. Right-about-face.
DWIGHT L. MOODY
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
As it is never too soon to do good, so it is never too late to repent; I will, therefore, neither neglect the time present, nor despair of the time past. If I had been sooner good, I might perhaps have been better; if I am longer bad, I shall, I am sure, be worse.
ARTHUR WARWICK
Warwick's Spare Minutes
Some plants of the bitterest root have the whitest and sweetest blossoms; so the bitterest wrong has the sweetest repentance.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The most beautiful blessing we have been given is the chance to repent.
ISLAMIC PROVERB
But with the morning cool repentance came.
WALTER SCOTT
Rob Roy
Repentance follows hasty counsels.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Maxims
Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.
TED CHIANG
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
When we have heartily repented of a wrong, we should let all the waves of forgetfulness roll over it, and go forward unburdened to meet the future.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
True repentance is about transformation, not torture or torment.
DIETER F. UCHTDORF
"You Can Do It Now!"
Genuine repentance must bear the seal of a corrected life.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Repentance was never yet produced in any man's heart apart from the grace of God. As soon may you expect the leopard to regret the blood with which its fangs are moistened -- as soon might you expect the lion of the wood to abjure his cruel tyranny over the feeble beasts of the plain, as expect the sinner to make any confession, or offer any repentance that shall be accepted of God, unless grace shall first renew the heart.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon