Repentance quotes
123 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know."
"Repentance is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of Him; and it consists in the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the Spirit."
"How easily a fathers tenderness is recalled, and how quickly a son's offenses vanish at the slightest word of repentance!"
"All of a Christian's life is one of repentance."
"Can true repentance exist without faith? By no means. But although they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside repentance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"To do so no more is the truest repentance."
"Repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like."
"There's no repentance in the grave."
"True repentance hates the sin, and not merely the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God's love."
"What consoles one nowadays is not repentance but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date."
"Bad men are full of repentance."
"Illusion is brief, but repentance is long."
"Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please."
"It is foolish to lay out money for the purchase of repentance."
"Repentance must be something more than mere remorse for sins: it comprehends a change of nature befitting heaven."
"God never repents of what He has first resolved upon."
"Remorse is impotent; it will repeat its faults. Repentance only is a true force; it puts an end to everything."
"The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance."
"Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish."
"Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences."
"The dream is short, repentance long."
"Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies."
"When sins are dear to us we are too prone to slide into them again. The act of repentance itself is often sweetened with the thought that it clears our account for a repetition of the same sin."
"Remorse is impotence; it will sin again. Only repentance is strong - it can end everything."
"Repentance is a gift of God's grace."
