Giovanni Guareschi Quotes

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

My father was a clergyman and always said: 'Hate the sin but love the sinner.'

Tolerance as practiced by the Christian, enlightened West was never about thinking that bad people are good but that we are all called to love the sinner and hate the sin.

Love sinners, but hate their deeds, and do not disdain sinners for their failings, so that you yourself do not fall into the temptation in which they abide... Do not be angry at anyone and do not hate anyone, neither for their faith, nor for their shameful deeds... Do not foster hatred for the sinner, for we are all guilty... Hate his sins, and pray for him, so that you may be made like unto Christ, who had no dislike for sinners, but prayed for them.

There are no unforgivable sins.

Christians are supposed to be the most forgiving people on the face of the Earth.

The Gospel announces that Jesus came to acquit the guilty. He came to judge and be judged in our place. Christ came to satisfy the deep judgment against us once and for all so that we could be free from the judgement of God, others, and ourselves.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist.

No one was ever scolded out of their sins.

Nothing enables us to forgive like knowing in our hearts that we have been forgiven.

if I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation

Healthy fiction, no matter how wildly it may depart from the material order, teaches us to love ourselves in a wholesome manner by loving our neighbor. Indeed, even by loving our enemies - at least by trying to learn to love them, and by believing that it is right to do so. With grace this is possible.

Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

Jesus teaches us to forgive and I've got to trust him on that one.

It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found - not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater.

God is not looking for repayment, but repentance. What heals a broken relationship is sincere love and contrition.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

When people realize that they have been forgiven of everything, it becomes a little bit easier for them to forgive others.

Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all.