John Ortberg Quotes

To confess a fault freely is the next thing to being innocent of it.

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

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

Regret is not a proactive feeling. It is situated in disappointment, sorrow, even remorse. It merely wishes things were different without an act to cause a difference. However, repentance is different. Repentance is an admission of, hatred of, and turning away from sin before God.

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

If thou wouldst be justified, acknowledge thine injustice. He that confesses his sin, begins his journey toward salvation. He that is sorry for it, mends his pace. He that forsakes it, is at his journey's end.

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

By repenting, one acknowledges them as sins-therefore not to be repeated.

To grieve over sin is one thing, to repent is another.

There is a difference between admitting and confessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses for things that cannot be excused; confessing just names the crimes at its full severity.

I do not plan in any way to whitewash my sin. I do not call it a mistake, a mendacity; I call it sin. I would much rather, if possible - and in my estimation it would not be possible - to make it worse than less than it actually is. I have no one but myself to blame. I do not lay the fault or the blame of the charge at anyone else's feet. For no one is to blame but I take the responsibility. I take the blame. I take the fault.

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

Heaven finds an ear when sinners find a tongue.

There's no question that I've done wrong. I take full responsibility for having done wrong. I will regret for the rest of my life the pain and the harm that I've caused to others. But I did not break the law.

God's forgiveness is the only thing. And, well, I take full responsibility for the adultery. It was my fault and, you know, no matter what went on, the man has to take responsibility; and I do.

I have sinned against you, my Lord.

Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways.

Strive to attain to the greater virtues, but do not neglect the lesser ones. Do not make light of a fall even if it be the most venial of faults; rather, be quick to repair it by repentance, although many others may commit a large number of faults, slight and grievous, and remain unrepentant.

I was being called to surrender the very citadel of my self. I was completely in the dark. I did not really know what repentance was or what I was required to repent of. It was indeed the turning point of my life.

And the only thing to do with a sin is to confess, do penance and then, after some kind of decent interval, ask for forgiveness.

I have apologised to the police.

It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those that we intend to commit.

I apologise to people when I need to.