Origen Quotes

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me.

I would not hold that we must judge by the favorable or adverse result alone whether an undertaking was just or unjust.

True liberty, then, is a liberty to do everything that is right …

To me, evil comes when you have a choice between that and good, and you choose the wrong way.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

Men have the power of thinking that they may avoid sin.

The idea of right and wrong, being righteous, acknowledging when you make a mistake, repentance - all these important things I got from my Catholic background.

War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.

Nations cannot endure in sin.

Really to sin you have to be serious about it.

If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked accountable? Nay, why do we call men wicked at all? Evil is inevitable, but is also remediable.

Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

A 'sin' is something which is not necessary.

There is no sin except stupidity.

Every person who is tempted to go astray does not deserve punishment

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.

If we started prosecuting people for sin, we’d all be in jail.

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

Law is, for the most part, positive or mandatory. It prescribes certain duties which I am to do as the condition of my civic protection. Conscience is, for the most part, negative or prohibitory in its operation. It sets before me certain evils to be undone or repented of. Thus law aims to exalt its subject, or make him conventionally righteous; while conscience aims to humiliate him

Anybody that has had a brush with what feels like undiluted evil often ends up asking themselves the same questions - whether it's something that was a consequence of their own actions or actions that were taken against them or actions that they were caught up in.

Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.

Sin ought to be something exquisite, my dear boy.