Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Sin holds a certain allure when it remains a thought rather than an action. The potential for sin is more magical than the act itself.
In plain terms
Sin is more alluring in thought than in action.
What can you take from it?
Imagination often makes forbidden things more attractive than reality.

Where it applies

  • moral discussion
  • temptation analysis
  • creative writing

Putting it to work

  • explore inner temptation
  • value imagination
  • weigh action

Questions to consider

  • Is temptation stronger than action?
  • Why is sin romantic?

Another view

Some sins lose their allure even when only imagined.

More from V. S Pritchett

  1. On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are …

    Permalink to quote #13
  2. Prep school, public school, university: these now tedious influences standardize English autobiography, giving the educated Englishman the sad if fascinating a…

    Permalink to quote #15
  3. One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.

    Permalink to quote #12

Related quotes

  1. I thought of my own wife's tears and her limp submission the night before - the bleak satisfaction I took from her smallness as I used her shamelessly. She's c…

    John HartJohn Hart quote #4
  2. How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.

    V. S PritchettV. S Pritchett quote #4
  3. We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have.

    Publilius SyrusPublilius Syrus quote #33