Maria Monk Quotes

I was brought up a Catholic, so I take no pleasure in guilt.

One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.

I'd stand in line for Confession with old people and little kids, and as the line moved up, I knew when I got into the box that I would lie! Again!

We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience... It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again.

The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the sense of guilt in civilization

Conviction is not repentance; conviction leads to repentance. But you can be convicted without repentance.

My sin is the black spot which my bad act makes, seen against the disk of the Sun of Righteousness. Hence religion and sin come and go together.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

I am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked thing.

Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It's a little easier if you've got a god to forgive you.

I was raised Catholic, and I can get incredibly guilty about mistakes.

There is no original sin. You don't have to pay repentance to anything or anybody.

That's what troubles me: I should like to suffer more for the expiation of my sins.

I never went to church. The priests couldn't scare me with all that crap about hell, but somehow I knew, inside of me somehow, I knew that I'd pay for it.

I know I'm a sinner.

I've been a sinner and a saint. If you've been a saint all your life, it's pretty easy to sleep at night. If you've been a sinner, you're just as comfortable in it.

There is an important difference between the sorrow for sin that leads to repentance and the sorrow that leads to despair.

I do not seek redemption from the consequences of my sin. I seek to be redeemed from sin itself. Until I have attained that end, I shall be content to be restless.

Sister, I won't ask for forgiveness, my sins are all I have.

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness.

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin.

Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again. Repentance alone is powerful; it ends all.

When I hear music, it seems to me that all the sins of my life pass slowly by me with veiled faces, lay their hands on my head, and say softly, "My child."

Be ashamed when you sin, don't be ashamed when you repent [To repent means to have a change of heart and mind. It is not simply a feeling of sorrow ,but a psycho/spiritual growth away from evil/death and a turning to God/life]. Sin is the wound, repentance is the medicine. Sin is followed by shame; repentance is followed by boldness [ Boldness means to beg God for undeserved mercy]. Satan has overturned this order and given boldness to sin and shame to repentance.

Real repentance means coming not only to be sorry for the consequences of sin but to hate sin itself.