Quotes about Depravity

Whatever vices and corruptions men see in the lives of their ministers will not be attributed to the depravity of their old nature which still abides in them, but to the gospel.

The utmost extremity of degradation is the obscene merriment to which it gives rise.

We have before us the fiendishness of business competition and the world war, passion and wrongdoing, antagonism between classes and moral depravity within them, economic tyranny above and the slave spirit below.

Because of total depravity, you and I were desperate for God's grace before we were saved. Because of total depravity, you and I remain desperate for God's grace even after we're saved.

Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love. But observe that most people are creatures cut in half who keep swinging desperately to one side or to the other.

Grace never ignores the awful truth of our depravity; in fact it emphasizes it. The worse we realize we are the greater we realize God's grace.

It is not that we can't do good. We do. It's just that we can't keep from doing bad. In theological terms, we are "totally depraved." Though made in God's image, we have fallen. We're corrupt at the core. The very center of our being is selfish and perverse. David said, "I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me" (Ps. 51:5 NLT).

God's mercy does not make sin tolerable; it makes sin forgivable. The proud and the depraved alike must kneel at the same feet for mercy. For those willing, God turns sin's empty cistern into a deep wellspring overflowing with love.

Man is weak, greedy, craven, lustful, prey to every species of vice and depravity. He will lie, steal, cheat, murder, melt down the very statues of the gods and coin their gold as money for whores. This is man.

I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.

An uncommon prudence is habtual with the subtler depravity, for it has everything to hide.

Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.