I hesitate to deposit money in a bank. I am afraid I shall never dare to take it out again. When you go to confession and entrust your sins to the safe-keeping of the priest, do you ever come back for them?
Forgiveness is always free. But that doesn't mean that confession is always easy. Sometimes it is hard. Incredibly hard. It is painful to admit our sins and entrust ourselves to God's care.
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence.
The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.
Confession, alas, is the new handshake.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff -- it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.
A generous confession disarms slander.