Karl Barth Quotes

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.

Whoever hates his sins will stop sinning; and whoever confesses them will receive remission. A man can not abandon the habit of sin if he does not first gain enmity toward sin, nor can he receive remission of sin without confession of sin. For the confession of sin is the cause of true humility.

You will never see the preciousness of a Savior, if you do not see the reality of your sin.

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

Great is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins.

I think God's wrath and purgatory are the only things keeping me on the straight and narrow. I like the idea of purgatory. It's like a cosmic do-over.

Let God and all his creation teach you what your sins are.

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.

To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked.

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!

Each life is unique. But for all, repentance will surely include passing through the portal of humble prayer. Our Father in Heaven can allow us to feel fully the conviction of our sins. He knows the depths of our remorse. He can then direct what we must do to qualify for forgiveness.

To us sin has not become any less of a mystery or a pain.

We are not punished for our sins, but by them.

Repentance is but want of power to sin.

Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

As somebody once said, we're not punished for our sins, we're punished by them.

God may not accept a person to forgive him his sins, without an atonement, else he must give free license to sin both in angels and men, and then sin were no sin, and our God were no God.

Many without punishment, but none without sin.

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

We're all sinners, every one of us. We've all done things we wish we hadn't.

I repent daily my sins, my faults, and my shortcomings.

If one of you has seriously sinned, repent-now. It is not good to violate the commandments of the Lord. It is worse to do nothing about it. Sin is like cancer in the body. It will never heal itself. It will become progressively worse unless cured through the medicine of repentance.

I am mindful that we're all sinners.

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

You cannot play the hypocrite before God; and to obtain pardon you must cease to sin, as well as to be exercised by a spirit of repentance.