Penance Quotes

• In the life of the body a man is sometimes sick, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. Even so in the spiritual life a man is sick on account of sin. For that reason he needs medicine so that he may be restored to health; and this grace is bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Spiritual, Men, Medicine

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• To do penance is to bewail the evil we have done, and to do no evil to bewail.

  Pope Gregory I

  Evil, Saint, Done

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• The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness.

  Ignatius of Loyola

  Pain, Suffering, Doe

  Saint Ignatius of Loyola (2012). “The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola”, p.40, Courier Corporation

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• The best penance is to have patience with the sorrows God permits. A very good penance is to dedicate oneself to fulfill the duties of everyday with exactitude and to study and work with all our strength.

  Peter Damian

  Sorrow, Everyday, Study

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• Chaos is the penance for leisure.

  Amy Tan

  Leisure, Chaos

  Amy Tan (2001). “The Bonesetter's Daughter”, p.17, Penguin

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• Everyone has a need to do penance. It's a basic need, like washing. It's about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It's the balance we call morality.

  Jo Nesbo

  Balance, Essentials, Needs

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• We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and more. Penance clears the eye of conscience and of reason. It helps think clearly, judge sanely. It strengthens the action of our will.

  Thomas Merton

  Eye, Thinking, Giving

  "Thoughts in Solitude". Book by Thomas Merton, 1956.

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• 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.

  Joseph J. Ellis

  Kind, Sin, Asking For Forgiveness

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• We have very little, so we have nothing to be preoccupied with. The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have, the more free you are.

  Mother Teresa

  Giving, Littles, Calcutta

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• Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Mean, Omission, Catholic

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (2000). “The Aquinas Catechism: A Simple Explanation of the Catholic Faith by the Church's Greatest Theologian”, p.86, Sophia Institute Press

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• No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure

  Murasaki Shikibu

  Heart, Long, Taught

  Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.506, Tuttle Publishing

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• The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Done, He Man

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1857). “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, p.37

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• It is penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community living.

  Dorothy Day

  Peace, Community Living, Giving

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• Let us read the lives of the saints; let us consider the penances which they performed, and blush to be so effeminate and so fearful of mortifying our flesh.

  Alphonsus Liguori

  Attachment, Saint, Flesh

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• Penance to be sure must be used as a tool, in due times and places, as need may be. If the flesh, being too strong, kicks against the spirit, penance takes the rod of discipline, and fast, and the cilice of many buds, and mighty vigils; and places burdens enough on the flesh, that it may be more subdued. But if the body is weak, fallen into illness, the rule of discretion does not approve of such a method.

  St. Catherine of Siena

  Strong, Attachment, Discipline

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• No penance serves to renew them, no massive transfusions of trust. Why not even revenge can undo them, so twisted these vows and so crushed.

  Leonard Cohen

  Revenge, Why Not, Twisted

  Song: Humbled In Love, Album: Recent Songs, 1979

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• True penance consists in regretting without ceasing the faults of the past, and in firmly resolving to never again commit that which is so deplorable.

  Bernard of Clairvaux

  Regret, Past, Saint

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• People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.

  Richard Stallman

  People, Church, Use

  "Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software". Book by Sam Williams, Chapter 8, www.oreilly.com. 2002.

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• A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

  H. L. Mencken

  Family, Children, School

  H.L. Mencken “A little book in C major”, Рипол Классик

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• We find nothing easier than being wise, patient, superior. We drip with the oil of forbearance and sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. For that very reason we ought to discipline ourselves a little; for that very reason we ought to cultivate a little emotion, a little emotional vice, from time to time. It may be hard for us; and among ourselves we may perhaps laugh at the appearance we thus present. But what of that! We no longer have any other mode of self-overcoming available to us: this is our asceticism, our penance.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sympathy, Wise, Emotional

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• Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to heaven.

  Pope Pius X

  Holy Eucharist, Christian Inspirational, Heaven

  "Quotable Saints". Book by Ronda Chervin, p. 79, 2003.

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• Obedience is a penance of reason, and, on that account, a sacrifice more acceptable than all corporal penances and mortifications.

  John of the Cross

  Sacrifice, Reason, Obedience

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• I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Believe, Years, Coward

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3943, Manonmani Publishers

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• Christians aren't people who never sin or always do the right thing. We're people who live in continual repentance.

  LeCrae

  Christian, People, Sin

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• I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Office, Way, Fields

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.9

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