quotations about forgiveness
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
JESUS
Luke 11:4
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
JESUS
Luke 17:3
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1957
I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.
SIMONE WEIL
"Void and Compensation", Gravity and Grace
"Forgive and forget" goes the expression, and for our idealized magnanimous selves, that was all you needed. But for our actual selves the relationship between those two actions wasn't so straightforward. In most cases we had to forget a little bit before we could forgive; when we no longer experienced the pain as fresh, the insult was easier to forgive, which in turn made it less memorable, and so on.
TED CHIANG
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling", Subterranean Press Magazine
Forgiveness is like the gentle zephyrs wafting the dew of heaven over field, farm and woodland, rendering the landscape beautiful to behold.
C.L.W.
"Forgiveness", The Juvenile Instructor, Volume 25
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
It is right for him who asks forgiveness for his offenses to grant it to others.
HORACE
Satires
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
JESUS
Luke 6:37
But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
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
The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.
STEVE MARABOLI
Unapologetically You
Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times (or seventy times seven)."
JESUS
Matthew 18:21
There comes a day when, for someone who has persecuted us, we feel only indifference, a weariness at his stupidity. Then we forgive him.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living
The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. It is one of the great virtues to which we all should aspire. Imagine a world filled with individuals willing both to apologize and to accept an apology. Is there any problem that could not be solved among people who possessed the humility and largeness of spirit and soul to do either -- or both -- when needed?
GORDON B. HINCKLEY
Standing for Something
True and genuine forgiveness, that which our Lord commands, buries all offenses beyond all hope of resurrection in the deep bosom of the ocean, and knows them again no more forever. Indeed, a friendship cemented by forgiveness is like iron welded--stronger at the point of juncture than elsewhere; or like a broken bone repaired--it will break anywhere else sooner than at the place of former fracture.
R. H. BENNETT
"The Law of Forgiveness", Homiletic Review, Volume 55
For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series
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
When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines upon you.
JON KRAKAUER
Into the Wild
He who forgives readily only invites offense.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
Cinna