Religious Behaviour And Experience

"The learned Brahmin attempts to prove the impossibility of an adoration of the Deity, saying … that which cannot be considered, cannot be worshipped. Should the learned Brahmin consider a full conception of the nature, essence, or qualities of the Supreme Being, or a physical picture truly representing the Almighty power, with offerings of flowers, leaves, viands, as essential to adoration, I agree with the learned Brahmin with respect to the impossibility of the worship of God."

"Vivekananda prioritized the adoration of an impersonal Brahman over bhakthi-centred, anthroporpic worship."

"Parasnath, a mountain in Bihar of great sanctity; it is the eastern, as Mount Abu is the western metropolis of Jain worship and pilgrimage. 10,000, annually, from distant parts of India, visit the scene of Nirvana or beatific annihilation of the ten of the 24 deified saints or Thirthankars, who are the objects of Jain adoration; and from the last of these, Parswa or Parswanatha, the hill originally called samet Sikhar took its better known name as Parasnath."

"The Sufi adoration of God is also expressed by the salat (ritual prayer), which is in fact, the second pillar of Islam… Prayer is seen as an intimate conversation between the human and the Divine....Rumi’s view, absorption in the Divine Unity is the soul of prayer."

"One has to view the attitude of the Zorashtrian community towards this sacred symbol [fire-worship] side by side with its adoration of other sacred elements."

"Persians call the Creator Hormoz, but also Izad or Yazdan. They pretend that the adoration of the fire reconciles them with the Creator, because it is the most powerful and sublime of the elements. The polytheists explained their adoration of idols in the same manner."

"And while the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return."

"Nec unquam primi consilii deos pœnitet."

"True repentance is to cease from sin."

"He [Cato] used to say that in all his life he never repented but of three things. The first was that he had trusted a woman with a secret; the second that he had gone by sea when he might have gone by land; and the third, that he had passed one day without having a will by him."

"He comes never late who comes repentant."

"Der Wahn ist kurtz, die Reu ist lang."

"There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded — the penitent thief — that no one should despair; and only one, that no one should presume."

"D'uomo è il fallir, ma dal malvagio il buono Scerne il dolor del fallo."

"Repentance is purgative; fear not the working of this pill."

"When prodigals return great things are done."

"Chacun s'égare, et le moins imprudent, Est celui-là qui plus tôt se repent."

"It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending."

"Restore to God his due in tithe and time: A tithe purloin'd cankers the whole estate."

"Who after his transgression doth repent, Is halfe, or altogether, innocent."

"Woman, amends may never come too late."

"God dropped a spark down into everyone, And if we find and fan it to a blaze, It'll spring up and glow, like—like the sun, And light the wandering out of stony ways."

"But with the morning cool repentance came."

"Nam sera nunquam est ad bonos mores via. Quem pœnitet peccasse, pæne est innocens."

"Cave ne quidquam incipias, quod post pœniteat."

"Velox consilium sequitur pœnitentia."

"O that we would therefore, while we are on this side of the grave, make our peace with God! Tomorrow may be our dying day; let this be our repenting day."

"I do not buy repentance at so heavy a cost as a thousand drachmæ."

"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior."

"Amid the roses, fierce Repentance rears Her snaky crest; a quick-returning pang Shoots through the conscious heart."

"It is often better for a person to recognize a sin than to do a good deed. Recognizing a sin makes a person humble. Doing a good deed often can feed a person’s pride."

"On the one hand, there is the type of sinner whom, in present-day language, we would call ‘oppressor.’ Their basic sin consists in oppressing, placing intolerable burdens on others, acting unjustly and so on. On the other hand, there are those who sin ‘from weakness’ or those ‘legally considered sinners’ according to the dominant religious view.Jesus takes a very different approach to each group. He offers salvation to all, and makes demands of all, but in a very different way. He directly demands a radical conversion of the first group, an active cessation from oppressing. For these, the coming of the Kingdom is above all a radical need to stop being oppressors."

"When reason’s voice, Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war and misery; that virtue Is peace and happiness and harmony; When man’s maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood; -kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle, its authority Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood’s trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now."

"Abba Moses asked Abba Silvanus, "Can a man lay a new foundation every day?" The old man said, "If he works hard, he can lay a new foundation at every moment.""

"Above all, repentance; not wholesale repentance: “I have sinned, father, I have sinned,” or, still worse, the admission that I am wholly in sin, that I was born in sin, that every step of mine is sin. This admission, collecting, compacting all the sins in one heap, seems to separate them from me and deprives me of that inevitable spiritual use, which by the mercy of God is attached to every sin. ... We have a terrible habit of forgetting,—of forgetting our evil, our sins. And there is no more radical means for forgetting our sins, than wholesale repentance. All the sins are boiled down, as it were, into one impermeable mass, with which nothing can be done."

"When iron scourge, and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the best."

"Come back then, O, them prodigal, to thy Father. Quit thy sad folly and emptiness, thy reproaches of soul, thy diseased longings, and thy restless sighs. Return again to thy God, and give thyself to Him in a final and last sacrifice. Conquer again, as Christ will help you, the original love, in that to abide and rest."

"Of my past wanderings the sole fruit is shame, And deep repentance, of the knowledge born That all we value in this world is naught."

"μετανοήσατε οὖν καὶ ἐπιστρέψατε πρὸς τὸ ἐξαλειφθῆναι ὑμῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας."

"What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that struggling to be free Art more engag'd!"

"Sinners and those who do not confess due to shame deliver their soul unto death. They suffer in a similar fashion to those who are ill, who do not run to the doctors because of shame."

"The manic lover does not love his beloved as much as God loves the repentant soul."

"The beauty of repentance is that it transforms shame into wisdom, sin into experience."

"Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent."

"They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

"The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins."

"In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

"Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons."

"Repentance is as absolute a condition of the covenant of grace as faith; and as necessary to be performed as that … not only a sorrow for sins past, but (what is a natural consequence of such sorrow, if it be real) a turning from them into a new and contrary life. … Repentance is an hearty sorrow for our past misdeeds, AND a sincere resolution and endeavour, to the utmost of our power, to conform all our actions to the law of God. So that repentance does not consist in one single act of sorrow, (though that being the first and leading act gives denomination to the whole,) but in "doing works meet for repentance" in a sincere obedience to the law of Christ, the remainder of our lives."

"When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent," he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance."