Forgiveness Quotes

Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal.

Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

people are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.

Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

It is very east to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.

Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.

When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.

Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.

Be grateful for yourself...be thankful.

Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.

Anger is short-lived madness.

I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.

To be alive, to able to see, to walk...it's all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.

The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, 'O God, forgive me,' or 'Help me.'

He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything...We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run.

Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.

No longer forward nor behindI look in hope or fear;But, grateful, take the good I find,The best of now and here.

Happiness lies first of all in health.

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.

But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round...as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.

The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.

It is not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

Many promising reconciliations have broken down because while both parties come prepared to forgive, neither party come prepared to be forgiven.

Forgiveness is the highest and most difficult of all moral lessons.

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

What you really value is what you miss, not what you have.

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others, I can see them as teachers of forgiveness in my life, reminding me that I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge.

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.

There is no wealth but life.

One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life.

He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.

Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.

It's said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies - because you never know when you'll have to work with them.

How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all.

Reject hatred without hating.

Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.

Forgiveness is the oil of relationships.

How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself.

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.

Experience is how life catches up with us and teaches us to love and forgive each other.

Only the brave know how to forgive... a coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget.

Forgiveness means letting go of the past.

When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

The hatred you're carrying is a live coal in your heart - far more damaging to yourself than to them.

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

The noblest revenge is to forgive

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Forgiving is not about forgetting, it's letting go of the hurt

To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils; but to prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine.

True affluence is not needing anything.

I believe with all my heart that civilization has produced nothing finer than a man or woman who thinks and practices true tolerance.

Forgiveness is almost a selfish act because of its immense benefits to the one who forgives.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for.

Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind...And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again...Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory Forgiving sets you free.

You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.

It takes a lot of grace and maturity to simply forgive, but a lot of healing takes place when you do.

We win by tenderness. We conquer by forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.

Not what we have, but what we use, not what we see, but what we choose, these are the things that mar or bless the sum of human happiness.

Christmas gift suggestions:To your enemy, forgiveness.To an opponent, tolerance.To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.

There is a mortal breed most full of futility. In contempt of what is at hand, they strain into the future, hunting impossibilities on the wings of ineffectual hopes.

To be social is to be forgiving.

Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him.

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.

Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.

Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.

Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.

Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.

How many things are there which I do not want.

A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.

If you forgive people enough you belong to them, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not squatter's rights of the heart.

Hate smolders and eventually destroys, not the hated but the hater.

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.

God will forgive me. It's his job.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.

Luckily, I never feel at one time more than half my pains.

I have no riches but my thoughts, Yet these are wealth enough for me

Love is an endless act of forgiveness.

He who pardons easily invites offense.

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.

Remember that not to be happy is not to be grateful.

What power has love but forgiveness?

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

Without forgiveness, there's no future.

Nor need we power or splendor, wide hall or lordly dome; The good, the true, the tender - these form the wealth of home.

The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?

It is almost impossible to throw dirt on someone without getting a little on yourself

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

It is always the case that when the Christian looks back, he is looking at the forgiveness of sins.

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather understand one another.

As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind.

Trouble is only an opportunity in work clothes.

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.

Friendships like marriages are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.

It is not customary to love what one has.

The moment an individual can accept and forgive him or herself, even a little, is the moment in which he or she becomes to some degree lovable.

Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself.

One of the things that perhaps we can learn through the political process about bringing people together is to remember South Carolina, remember the families of the nine victims, how they brought a community together during the worst atrocity in our state's history, i am thankful that I live in a country where forgiveness can be seen in the worst of conditions.

The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.

Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

Forgiveness is the act of admitting we are like other people.

Every fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

I never forgive, but I always forget.

Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.

One may have been a fool, but there's no foolishness like being bitter.

Hate is all a lie, there is no truth in hate.

I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.

People call me an optimist, but I'm really an appreciator ... years ago, I was cured of a badly infected finger with antibiotics when once my doctor could have recommended only a hot water soak or, eventually, surgery.... When I was six years old and had scarlet fever, the first of the miracle drugs, sulfanilamide, saved my life. I'm grateful for computers and photocopiers ... I appreciate where we've come from.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.

Happiness is composed of misfortunes avoided.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

To understand is to forgive, even oneself.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.

The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God.

I figure if I have my health, can pay the rent and I have my friends, I call it 'content.'

It is strange what a contempt men have for the joys that are offered them freely.

Forgiveness is man's deepest need and highest achievement.

Enjoy the successes that you have, and don't be too hard on yourself when you don't do well. Too many times we beat up on ourselves. Just relax and enjoy it

Hatred is like fire, it makes even light rubbish deadly.

One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth one hundred shallow faculties.

How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.

Eden is that old-fashioned house we dwell in every day Without suspecting our abode until we drive away.

A woman who can't forgive should never have more than a nodding acquaintance with a man

Know all and you will pardon all.

You cannot hate other people without hating your self.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover.

I used to store my anger and it affected my play. Now I get it out. I'm never rude to my playing partner. I'm very focused on the ball. Then it's over.

Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem

Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sins.

Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.

A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.

If you count all your assets, you always show a profit

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

Anger as soon as fed is dead- 'Tis starving makes it fat.

My friends are my estate.

We never ask God to forgive anybody except when we haven't.

Ask the gods nothing excessive.

What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.

Revenge could steal a man's life until there was nothing left but emptiness.

We are all of us richer than we think we are.

Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always makes you less than you are.

Mutual forgiveness of each vice. Such are the Gates of Paradise.

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.

For me it's not possible to forget, and I don't understand people who, when the love is ended, can bury the other person in hatred or oblivion. For me, a man I have loved becomes a kind of brother.

All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.

No one has yet had the courage to memorialize his wealth on his tombstone. A dollar mark would not look well there.

The difficulties, hardships and trials of life, the obstacles... are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance.

Only with a new ruler do you realize the value of the old

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive.

Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far.

So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.

Resentment is weak and lowers your self-esteem.

The angry people are those people who are most afraid

Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the sky, to have loved, to have thought, to have done?

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.

He is rich that is satisfied.

A wise man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contently.

Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne'er pardon who have done wrong.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

Soon I realized that if beauty equalled forgiveness, I was never going to be forgiven.

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.

Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.