A. J. Jacobs Quotes

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

You make a deal. You figure out how much sin you can live with.

Necessity makes an honest man a knave.

Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.

I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.

Never in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her soul – had she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgments had come. Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?

It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action; it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.

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

Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.

On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?

One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

If certain women walk straight into adultery, there are many others who cling to numerous hopes, and commit sin only after wandering through a maze of sorrows.

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

In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.

If you choose the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil.

I had a little sorrow, Born of a little sin.

Temptation can be tormenting, but remember: The torment of temptation to sin is nothing to compare with the torment of the consequences of sin. Remorse and regret cannot compensate for sin....though sins can be forgiven immediately - the consequences can last a lifetime

I never know which is worse: the sorrow when you hit the bird or the shame when you miss it.

I was a sinner. I knew that without a doubt. But I was not alone. And the night was the accomplice of us all.

It is sometimes rational to do what is wrong, and sometimes irrational to do what is right

He knew that conscience was chiefly fear of society or fear of oneself.

Chris: I don't know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer.

To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.

Whenever there is a conflict between universal principles and self-interest, self-interest is likely to prevail.

How long had he been doing what was necessary instead of what was right? In a fair world they would be one and the same.