“When virtue is pictured as innocence and innocence equated with childlikeness, the implication is obviously that knowledge and experience are no longer media of goodness, but have become in themselves contaminating. This is a very despairing outlook, in its way as black as Augustine's original sin, for it supposes that original goodness will in all likelihood be defiled...It surrenders the attempt to represent virtue in a mature phase.” WayBlackSinVirtueMediaGoodnessOriginalsSurrenderInnocenceMaturePhasesOutlookImplicationsLikelihoodOriginal SinAugustineKnowledge And Experience Book:Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism Source: Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism
“It doesn't matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can't understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water?” MindMatterHandsBlackWaterSinVirtueCapableMonstersCathy Book:East of Eden Source: East of Eden
“My sin is the black spot which my bad act makes, seen against the disk of the Sun of Righteousness. Hence religion and sin come and go together.” TogetherBlackSinSunSpotsRighteousnessComes And GoesDisk Author:Charles Henry Parkhurst
“Trees there were, old as trees can be, huge and grasping with hearts black as sin. Strange trees that some said walked in the night.” HeartSaidNightBlackSinTreeStrangeHugeGrasping Author:Neil Gaiman