Edmond de Goncourt Quotes

That free will was demonstrated in the placing of temptation before man with the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree which would give him a knowledge of good and evil, with the disturbing moral conflict to which that awareness would give rise.

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

you could have forgiven my committing a sin if you hadn't feared that I had a committed a pleasure as well.

A lot of us have developed a diet mentality toward lust. We really want to cut back on lust because we know its not healthy and it makes us feel bad. But like some rich, calorie-laden chocolate dessert, lust is just too tasty to resist completely. Surely God will understand if we break our diet and nibble a little lust now and then.

It's easier to tell a lie, than to tell the truth. It's easier to kill a fly, than it is to turn it loose.

Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim - not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good.

I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I’m not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner.

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.

A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.

Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not.

There comes a moment in every life when a choice must be made between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and darkness. These decisions are made in an instant, but with repercussions that last a lifetime.

Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.

You little know what you have done, when you have first broke the bounds of modesty; you have set open the door of your fancy to the devil, so that he can, almost at his pleasure ever after, represent the same sinful pleasure to you anew.

There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.

Evil was seductive and easy, and virtue was difficult and unappreciated.

The Devil may also make use of morality.

To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however "good" I may become, remains unchanged.

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of "Fire!" under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace every muscle to its highest tension.

There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

At the moment I sin, I desire the sin more than I desire to please God.