In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.

The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.

Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.

People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

If you want to deal with an epidemic – crime or health – the smartest and most effective and cheapest way to deal with it is prevention first.

A sinner can no more repent and believe without the Holy Spirit’s aid than he can create a world.

Sin is geographical.

To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.

I might talk about killing people, but that doesn’t mean I do it.

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin‘ wealthy.

Sacrifice, discipline and prayer are essential. We gain strength through God’s word. We receive grace from the sacrament. And when we fumble due to sin – and it’s gonna happen – confession puts us back on the field.

By that sin fell the angels.

Although God loves us unconditionally, He does get angry at sin, wickedness and evil. But He is not an angry God. God hates sin, but He loves sinners! He will never approve of sin in your life, but He always loves you and wants to work with you to make progress in living a holy life in Christ.

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.

When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can’t bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

There is no sin except stupidity.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

God never meant that people were to wear clothes. He meant we were to be nude. But we were in a state of innocence. Then sin came into the human race and became a blood poisoning.

We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?

Self-centered indulgence, pride and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle.

Lord keep us all from sin. Teach us how to walk circumspectly; enable us to guard our minds against error of doctrine, our hearts against wrong feelings, and our lives against evil actions.

Perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naive. Yes, but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

If Christ has died for me, ungodly as I am, without strength as I am, then I cannot live in sin any longer, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him who has redeemed me.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

I believe the scripture says that being gay is a sin.

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?

No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

‚You are no saint,‘ says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, I go to Him; other hope, I have none.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Even though God loves us, we still have a problem: sin. It’s important for us to learn how to confront sin and overcome it, because while God loves sinners, He hates sin. And He hates it because of what it does to us and how it keeps us from the abundant life Jesus died to give us.

I never sympathise with the accused unless there’s a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don’t ever sympathise with the criminal.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don’t think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today.

Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.