Sin

They suppose that Woman's Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sin.
~ William Blake, Annotations to Lavater (1788).

Lead us not into temptation; tell us where it is, and we'll find it.
~ Captain Billy's Whiz Bang (August 1922).

If the guilt of sin is so great that nothing can satisfy it but the blood of Jesus; and the filth of sin is so great that nothing can fetch out the stain thereof but the blood of Jesus, how great, how heinous, how sinful must the evil of sin be.
~ William Bridge, in The Works of the Rev. William Bridge, M.A., Volume III (1845).

Sensuality is the grave of the soul.
~ William Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Evil -- Sin

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it -- the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, in Contemporary Review (1877). The Ethics of Belief, I. The Duty Of Inquiry

Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell;
One sin, unslain, within my breast,
Would make that heav'n as dark as hell.
~ William Cowper, from Olney Hymns (1779). Book III: On the Rise, Progress, Changes, and Comforts of the Spiritual Life. Hatred of Sin

No man was ever scolded out of his sins.
~ William Cowper, in The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esq., Volume III (1804). Letter LXXVI. To the Revd. John Newton (17 June 1783)

Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Expostulation

It was not the pleasant things in the world that came from the devil, and the dreary things from God! It was "sin brought death into the world and all our woe"; as the sin vanishes the woe will vanish too.
~ Robert William Dale

Original sin ... has so totally corrupted human nature that man is incapable of any spiritual good and inclined to all evil.
~ W.H.T. Dau, What Is Lutheranism? (1930)

Thou shalt not commit adultery ... unless in the mood.
~ W.C. Fields

Man was meant to be a gardener, but by reason of his sin he became a farmer.
~ William Roxburgh (W.R.) Forrester, Christian Vocation: Studies in Faith and Work (1951).

Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.
~ William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour (1665).

Sin goes in disguise, and so is welcome.
~ William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour (1665).

Since man was turned out of paradise, he can do nothing without labour, except sin.
~ William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour (1665).

The Fall is the eternal Mythus of Man ... in fact, the very transition by which he becomes man.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of History (1832).

If I were to sin my sins over again, I think I should sin a little more on the side of candid severity. I am sure I should do more good in that way, and I am sure that when I used to dissemble my real mind I did harm to those whose feelings I wished to spare.
~ William Dean Howells, from Literature And Life (1902). The Young Contributor

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
Sinners are much more fun ...
And only the good die young.
~ Billy Joel, from The Stranger (1977 album). Only the Good Die Young

He that eateth well, drinketh well; he that drinketh well, sleepeth well; he that sleepeth well, sinneth not; he that sinneth not goeth straight through Purgatory to Paradise.
~ William Lithgow

Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.
~ Bill Maher

[I]t is all over with priests and gods when man becomes scientific. Moral: science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is forbidden. Science is the first sin, seed of all sin, the original sin. This alone is morality. "Thou shalt not know" -- the rest follows.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888).

To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Suffering and taking sin upon himself might have been right for that preacher of small people. But I rejoice in great sin as my great solace.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Perhaps no sin so easily besets us as a sense of self-satisfied superiority to others.
~ William Osler, from Aequanimitas: With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practioners of Medicine (1904). Chauvinism in Medicine (delivered at Canadian Medical Association, Montreal; 1902)

While the legend of the Fall passes away, the doctine of the Fall remains.
~ William N. Rice, Christian Faith in an Age of Science (1903).

Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept but they can be understood. They are the same for everyone.
~ Will Rogers

If custom lawful make,
Then sin were lawful for example sake.
~ William Rowley, A New Wonder, A Woman Never Vexed (c. 1610-1614). Act V, scene i

To be too intimate with sinners is to intimate that you are sinners.
~ William Secker, from The Nonsuch Professor in His Meridian Splendor, or the Singular Actions of Sanctified Christians (1660).

Sin is pleasant, but unprofitable.
~ William Secker, from The Nonsuch Professor in His Meridian Splendor, or the Singular Actions of Sanctified Christians (1660).

Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool --
Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool.
~ Robert William Service, from The Spell of the Yukon, and Other Verses (1907). The Song of the Wage-slave

Commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II

Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene iv

Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
~ William Shakespeare, Pericles. Act I, scene i

Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part II. Act III, scene iii

I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act III, scene ii

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act II, scene ii

O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene iii

O, what authority and show of truth can cunning sin cover itself withal!
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV, scene i

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act II, scene iv

Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold.
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act IV, scene vi

What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act II, scene ii

One mischief entered, brings another in.
~ William Smith

Say you're a winner but man you're just a sinner now.
~ Billy Squier, in Don't Say No (1981 album). The Stroke

There is in repentance this beautiful mystery -- that we may fly fastest home on broken wing.
~ William Laurence Sullivan, Epigrams and Criticisms in Miniature (1936).

I believe that a long step toward public morality will have been taken when sins are called by their right names.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

The reason you don't like the Bible, you old sinner, is because it knows all about you.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

Each of us takes his place in the center of his own world. But I am not the center of the world, or the standard of reference as between good and bad; I am not, and God is. In other words, from the beginning I put myself in God's place. This is my original sin.
~ William Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury), Christianity and Social Order (1942).

Temptations are an appeal to meet righteous needs in an unrighteous way.
~ William Thrasher, A Journey to Victorious Praying: Finding Discipline and Delight in Your Prayer Life (2003).

No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, Man: The Dwelling Place of God (1966). There Is No Wisdom in Sin

God! though all other sins on earth persist,
Strike dumb the blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Hello, Boys! (1919). The Deadliest Sin

I value more than I despise
My tendency to sin,
Because it helps me sympathise
With all my tempted kin.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Understood

This is the unpardonable sin -- to talk discouragingly to human souls hungering for hope.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Around the Year (1904). February 29. Optimism

Every contrition for sin is apt to encourage a not quite charitable wish that other people should exhibit a similar contrition.
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams, The Descent of the Dove: A History of the Holy Spirit in the Church (1939).

Sin has many forms, but the work of all is the same -- the preference of an immediately satisfying experience of things to the believed pattern of the universe; one may even say, the pattern of the glory. It has, in the prophets as everywhere, two chief modes of existence: impiety against man and impiety against God -- the refusal of others and the insistence on the self.
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams, He Came Down From Heaven (1938 essay). The Mystery of Pardon and the Paradox of Vanity

To break the basic laws of justice and decency is sin indeed. Man's freedom to honor principles is the moral dimension in his nature, and sin often appears as lawlessness. But sin has its root in something which is more than the will to break the law. The core of sin is our making ourselves the center of life, rather than accepting the holy God as the center. Lack of trust, self-love, pride, these are three ways in which Christians have expressed the real meaning of sin. But what sin does is to make the struggle with evil meaningless. When we refuse to hold our freedom in trust and reverence for God's will, there is nothing which can make the risk of life worth the pain of it.
~ Daniel Day Williams, Interpreting Theology, 1918-1952 (1953).

In nothing was slavery so savage and relentless as in its attempted destruction of the family instincts of the Negro race in America. Individuals, not families; shelters, not homes; herding, not marriages, were the cardinal sins in that system of horrors.
~ Fannie Barrier Williams, Speech before the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago IL (1893). Religious Duty to the Negro

The sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
By man is cursed alway.
~ Nathaniel Parker (N.P.) Willis, The Poems, Sacred, Passionate, And Humorous (1844 edition). Unseen Spirits. Stanza 5

I haven't been to mass for years, I've got every mortal sin on my conscience, but I know when I'm doing wrong.
~ Angus Wilson

Smugness is the very worst sin of all, I do believe. No shaft of light can pierce the armour of self-righteousness.
~ Lois Burnham Wilson, in the AA Grapevine magazine (August 1953). Family Circle

When a man resists sin on human motives only, he will soon be overcome.
~ (Bishop) Thomas Wilson, in Maxims of Piety and of Christianity (first published in 1781).