After spending a week studying Dante last month, I’ve been inspired to read more about sin, so I read Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung’s book about the seven deadly sins. I’ve included some passages I found helpful and meaningful.

When our character is distorted by vice, we seek these goods—and they are genuinely good things—in a misguided or even idolatrous manner: in the wrong way, at the wrong times and wrong places, too intensely, or at the expense of other things of greater value. That’s what makes the vices evil. (39)

Vainglory is a cheap substitute for true fulfillment of the human desire to be profoundly known by another person—to be known by name, for who one truly is—and to be loved just that way. […] A life spent praising ourselves, or seeking our own praise, will thereby stunt our growth and flourishing as human beings.  (74)

In sloth, we are literally divided against ourselves. We were made for relationship with God. If we are slothful, we have chosen to reject that relationship as the way to find fulfillment and chosen to try to make something else do its work instead. We are trying to make ourselves content with being less than we really are. (89)

Courage is the virtue of handling fear well; someone with courage fears the right things, in the right way, and at the right time. (148)

When we misuse something habitually, we find we lose our ability to appreciate its true goodness. (168)