Forgiveness Quotations | Page 6

Who understands much, forgives much.

The more we know the better we forgive. Whoever feels deeply, feels for all who live.

Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.

Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.

Don't tell friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.

We may not know how to forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing practice.

It makes you feel very virtuous when you forgive people, doesn't it?

In Lake Wobegon, we don't forget mistakes.

When you tame and domesticate the divine it loses its danger and it's power to forgive you, make you happy, or its power to challenge you, and call you towards new growth.

Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.

A heart filled with anger has no room for love.

Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence; forget it, forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it.

There is a manner of forgiveness so divine that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.

Learn to forgive yourself and move on.

To err is human, to forgive is divine.

Buried beneath disappointment and fear, anger and pride, I just might find it in my heart to forgive.

A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.

God does not accept me conditionally, on the basis of my performance, but bestows his love and forgiveness freely, despite my innumerable failures.

From my experience, forgiving is the only way to survive.

Give plenty of what is given to you, And listen to pity's call. Don't think the little you give is great, And the much you get is small.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

Know all and you will pardon all.

To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius.

Forgiveness is too easy. I can forget by indifference, but not forgive. I prefer revenge.

The rebels will be thinking about retaliation, what we have to do is stop; stop and transform it into a spiral of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Love and forgiveness is not for the faint-hearted.

Forgive thyself little, and others much.

Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And He invites us all to forgive each other.

Forgiving does not usually happen at once. It is a process, sometimes a long one, especially when it comes to wounds gouged deep. And we must expect some lapses...some people seem to manage to finish off forgiving in one swoop of the heart. But when they do, you can bet they are forgiving flesh wounds. Deeper cuts take more time and can use a second coat.

Spoken forgiveness, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand the response we want. I mean that when we tell people we forgive them, we must leave them free to respond to our good news however they are inclined. If the response is not what we hoped for, we can go home and enjoy our own healing in private.

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.

With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We are not really as innocent as we felt when we were first hurt. And we do not usually have a gigantic monster to forgive; we have a weak, needy, and somewhat stupid human being. When you see your enemy and yourself in the weakness and silliness of the humanity you share, you will make the miracle of forgiving a little easier.

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.

God invented forgiving as a remedy for a past that not even he could change and not even he could forget. His way of forgiving is the model for our forgiving.

Not even God can make something fair out of what is intrinsically unfair. Only one thing can be done. Something must break through the crust of unfairness and create a chance for a new fairness. Only forgiveness can make the breakthrough.

Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.

None of us wants to admit that we hate someone... When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate.

I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order to get an advantage over the people they forgive. And their instant forgiving only makes things worse... People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive... There is a right moment to forgive. We cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready for it when it arrives... Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long.

Forgive a wife-slammer if you can. But you don't have to live with him. Forgive a husband who is abusing your children if you can. But only after you kick him out of the house. And if you can't get him out, get help. It's available. In the meantime, don't let him near the kids, and don't let anyone tell you that if you forgive him it means you have to stay with him. [There's an important difference between forgiving a person and tolerating their bad behavior.]

How many times should you forgive your household bruiser? You should not even think about forgiving him. Not yet. Not as long as he has his foot on your neck. Your problem at this point is not forgiving. Your problem is how to get out of his reach. Once you get away from him, you can think about forgiving him.

...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving.

God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first.

We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die-for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. [forgiveness]

Their pain [the injurer's pain at having injured you] and your pain create the point and counterpoint for the rhythm of reconciliation. When the beat of their pain is a response to the beat of yours, they have become truthful in their feelings...they have moved a step closer to a truthful reunion.

Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long... If we wait too long to forgive, our rage settles in and claims squatter's rights to our souls.

The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain...Why do family feuds go on and on?...the reason is simple: no two people, no two families, ever weigh pain on the same scale.

The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.

I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is.

A wise judge may let mercy temper justice but may not let mercy undo it.

We forgive freely or we do not really forgive at all.

Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness.

If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have...they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word.

Forgiving is an affair strictly between a victim and a victimizer. Everyone else should step aside...The worst wounds I ever felt were the ones people gave to my children. Wrong my kids, you wrong me. And my hurt qualifies me to forgive you. But only for the pain you caused me when you wounded them. My children alone are qualified to forgive you for what you did to them.

I am certain that people never forgive because they believe they have an obligation to do it or because someone told them to do it. Forgiveness has to come from inside as a desire of the heart. Wanting to is the steam that pushes the forgiving engine.

Today I forgive all those who have ever offended me. I give my love to all thirsty hearts, both to those who love me and to those who do not love me.

Forgive those who have hurt you.

Nothing brings families together faster than forgiveness. That should make it Step No. 1, but most of us find forgiving hard. We associate it with weakness and losing when, actually, the reverse is true. When you forgive, you gain strength and come out a winner. You break free of control by the other person's actions.

Forgiving presupposes remembering. And it creates a forgetting not in the natural way we forget yesterday's weather, but in the way of the great "in spite of" that says: I forget although I remember. Without this kind of forgetting no human relationship can endure healthily. I don't refer to a solemn act of asking for and offering forgiveness. Such rituals as sometimes occur between parents and children, or friends, or man and wife, are often acts of moral arrogance on the one part and enforced humiliation on the other. But I speak of the lasting willingness to accept him who has hurt us.

Genuine forgiveness is participation, reunion overcoming the powers of estrangement. . . We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness is, the greater is our love.

He who forgives readily only invites offense.

God forgives somehow we have yet to learn the same.

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

Evil is done in hopes that evil surrenders, but the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers, and world of hunger in vengeance will always remember.

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.

Be gful to the man who cares nothing for your remorse. You are his equal.

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do!

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

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.

Oh God, I say not hear my prayers! I say: Blot with forgiving pen my sins away!

Forgiveness is commendable, but apply not ointment to the wound of an oppressor.

Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.

To me, forgiveness is the cornerstone of healing.

If the will remains in protest, it stays dependent on that which it is protesting against.

The heart has always the pardoning power.

Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)

Pardon, and keep silent, for what is shameful for women must be concealed among women.

Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.

Good to forgive, Best to forget.

A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you -- out of love -- takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

Forgive the person who has caused the most pain in your life and it will make you feel better.

To err is human, to forgive supine.

He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy, shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.

Sometimes we can take offense so easily. On other occasions we are too stubborn to accept a sincere apology. Who will subordinate ego, pride, and hurt-then step forward with 'I am truly sorry! Let's be as we once were: friends. Let's not pass to future generations the grievances, the anger of our time'? Let's remove any hidden wedges that can do nothing but destroy.

There is no forgiveness in nature.

When you haven't forgiven those who've hurt you, you turn back against your future. When you do forgive, you start walking forward.

The love of Jesus Christ covers your sins, and it also gives you the power to let other people off the hook. You've been forgiven, and you can forgive others.

To begin loving people today, we must close the door on the past. And that cannot happen without forgiveness! Forgive those who have hurt you - for your sake, not because they deserve it.

When I learned to forgive, it was like a million pounds were lifted from me.

To do evil for good is human corruption; to do good for good is civil retribution; but to do good for evil is Christian perfection. Though this be not the grace of nature, it is the nature of grace.

When true forgiveness happens it is one of the most astonishing and liberating of the human experience.

Forgiveness is the key to the heart's shackles.

Men are less forgiving than women.

Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.

Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.

The first step to loving someone else is to recognize the evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them.

I don't believe that to understand is necessarily to pardon, but I feel that to understand makes one forget that one cannot pardon.

There's no operation where you can have your anger cut out. But if you work on yourself, as you get better, you'll be more capable of seeing others as flawed human beings. That makes it easier to forgive.