Thomas a Kempis Quotes

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

Slight sorrow for sin is sufficient, provided it at the same time produces amendment.

There is nothing you can do to assuage your conscience when you commit sins. Crime is a spiritual assault on the soul.

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.

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.

None but the guilty know the withering pains of repentance.

Sharp and fell remorse, the offspring of my sin! Why do you, O God, lacerate my heart so late? Why, O boding cries, that scream so close to me,--why do I listen to you now, and never heard you before?

True repentance includes sorrow for sin and contrition of heart. It breaks the heart with sighs and sobs and groans.

I am a sinner....who's probably gonna sin again...Lord forgive me!

I had a little sorrow, Born of a little sin.

Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, “I have sinned.” The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes-a reflex action caused by self-disgust.

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

If thou hast sinned, lie not down without repentance; for the want of repentance, after one has sinned, makes the heart yet harder and harder.

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."

I often remembered also that I had been told, that we shall have as many devils biting us, if we go to hell, as we have unconfessed sins on our consciences.

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

Repentance is a sweet solace to conscience as well as the most complete atonement to the Supreme Judge of our offenses; notwithstanding, the tongue of malevolence and scurrility may be continually preparing its most poisonous ingredients for the punishment of a crime, which has already received more than half a pardon.

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

Repentance is accepted remorse.

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

I know what sin is.

On the day, therefore, when I went to the church to be confirmed, with a number of others, I suffered extremely from the reproaches of my conscience.

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.

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

Human nature is the same now as when Adam hid from the presence of God; the consciousness of wrong makes us unwilling to meet those whom we have offended.