quotations about forgiveness
When our anger turns to bitterness it becomes like a weed in the garden of our heart. If we pull the weeds, our garden can stay healthy and alive. But if we allow bitter weeds to grow, eventually our garden becomes ugly and weeds choke the life out of the vegetables in our garden. Forgiveness is like pulling out the weeds.
MICHAEL E. MCCULLOUGH
To Forgive Is Human: How to Put Your Past in the Past
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
attributed, Mayor
It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.
GRACE HOPPER
interview, "Only the Limits of Our Imagination", Chips Ahoy, July 1986
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.
HANNAH ARENDT
attributed, Aspects of Love: An Exploration of 1 Corinthians 13
Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.
ANNE LAMOTT
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1957
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue, which he alone that can practice in himself, can willingly believe in another.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves that allows us to get on with our lives instead of being trapped in the past by resentment.
RICK WARREN
Ladies Home Journal, Dec. 2008
Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1957
Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it never can be shown against the man.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Forgotten is forgiven.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Crack-Up
Never forgive an injury or an insult so long as the offending parties have it in their power to make reparation; since, if they are able to do so, and will not, whatever they may pretend to others, they, up to that time, are only laughing at you, and triumphing in secret. If, however, they have not the power to neutralize an impertinence by explanation, or a fraud by restitution, forgive and forget either--as soon as you can.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims
There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world--a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I know forgiveness is a man's duty, but, to my thinking, that can only mean as you're to give up all thoughts o' taking revenge: it can never mean as you're t' have your old feelings back again, for that's not possible.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
He who forgives readily only invites offense.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
Cinna
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
MATTHEW 6:14
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism