quotations about shame
Now there's a lifestyle
With painted lips
Now there's a lifestyle
Everybody wants it
But it don't exist
And I said shame...
EURYTHMICS
"Shame"
Suddenly, my need to disappear became stronger than my need to be safe. That's what shame does.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
Shame is like a lock, it shuts away what must be shut away, and is one of the most important mechanisms of social life.
KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD
Autumn
Most of my life was spent marinating in shame. It felt like part of my genetic makeup. Shame held my head underwater and told me to resign to my fate, to stop fighting. Shame left me feeling my very personhood was flawed.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
The only shame is to have none.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation!
JOHN BUNYAN
The Pilgrim's Progress
Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
Once they know they've got a hold of your shame, they can shake it out and hold it up for the all world to see. And you become less than it. You become something disgusting.
KIRSTY EAGER
Raw Blue
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
JONATHAN SWIFT
"Thoughts on Various Subjects", The Works of Jonathan Swift
Among the problems with shame was that it in fact did not make you shorter or quieter or less visible. You just felt like you were.
J. R. WARD
Lover Enshrined
Shame need not crouch
In such an earth as ours
Stand--stand erect;
The universe is yours.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Not with a Club, the Heart is broken"
All is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
It is safest to be moderately base--to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.
SYDNEY SMITH
The Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith
Where there is no shame, there is no honor.
MARTIN OPITZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.
LOUIS KRONENBERGER
Company Manners
Shame regulates differences, creates secrets, builds up a charge. The counterforce and antithesis of shame is desire, which with all its being seeks to eliminate differences, to do away with secrets, release tensions.
KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD
Autumn
Shame wields its power when you tamp it down and ignore its existence. Expose it to the light, and it becomes a vampire at high noon.
HOWARD ENGLANDER
"It's a shame we have so much trouble talking about shame", Chicago Now, August 29, 2017
Worthlessness, depravity, torment and fear. The definition is up to you. No matter where you stand, shame breeds nothing but negativity, which can cause you problems throughout your journey.
CORINE GATTI
"7 Ways to Beat Shame", Belief Net, April 14, 2017
Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.
BRENE BROWN
I Thought It Was Just Me
Do but increase a man's pride, and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it; for the greater value a man sets upon himself, the more pains he will take, and the greater hardships he will undergo to avoid shame.
BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE
The Fable of the Bees