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Repentance won't cure mischief.
-Scottish Proverb
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Forgiveness is love in its most noble form.
-Anon.
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Forgive and forget.
-Proverb
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Never repeat old grievances.
-Proverb
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A reconciled friend is a double enemy.
-Proverb
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Those that do you a very ill deed will never forgive you.
-Proverb
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If I die, I forgive you. If I live we shall see.
-Proverb
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Whoever approaches Me walking, I will come to him running; and he who meets Me with sins equivalent to the whole world, I will greet him with forgiveness equal to it.
-Mishkat Al-masabih
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In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.
-Hannah Arendt
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Bad men are full of repentance.
-Aristotle
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Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.
-Decimus Magnus Ausonius
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They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.
-Josiah Bailey
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The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.
-Arthur Balfour
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I never forgive, but I always forget.
-Arthur Balfour
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Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Giving The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I cannot forgive.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Repentance is another name for aspiration.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.
-Willard Beecher
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My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity. Job 14:17
-Bible
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In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. Ephesians 1:7
-Bible
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And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
-Bible
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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
-Ambrose Bierce
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There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
-Josh Billings
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It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those that we intend to commit.
-Josh Billings
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Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors.
-Josh Billings
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It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
-William Blake, Jerusalem, 1820
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Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
-Paul Boese
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True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.
-Francis H. Bradley
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The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be: But when he got well, a wolf once more was he.
-Walter Brower
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Forgive those who have hurt you.
-Les Brown
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Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.
-Les Brown
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Come, fair repentance, daughter of the skies! Soft harbinger of soon returning virtue; The weeping messenger of grace from heaven.
-Sir Thomas Browne
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What is past is past, there is a future left to all men, who have the virtue to repent and the energy to atone.
-Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
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Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn.
-George W. Bush, in memorium to the tragedy of Sept. 11, September 14, 2002
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To have the power to forgive,
Is empire and prerogative,
And 'tis in crowns a nobler gem,
To grant a pardon than condemn.
-Samuel Butler (poet)
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We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
-Samuel Butler
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The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine.
-Albert Camus
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Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.
-Thomas Carlyle
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One can't relive one's life. Forgiveness is not what's difficult; one's always too ready to forgive. And it does no good, that's obvious.
-Louis-Ferdinand Celine
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Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
-Edwin Hubbell Chapin
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Little, vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
-Lord Chesterfield
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Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever. It implies a discovery of weakness, which we are more careful to conceal than a crime. Many a man will confess his crimes to a friend; but I never knew a man that would tell his silly weaknesses to his most intimate one.
-Lord Chesterfield
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Love thy neighbor as thyself: Do not to others what thou wouldn't not wish be done to thyself: Forgive injuries. Forgive thy enemy, be reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke God in his behalf.
-Confucius
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Those who easily forgive invite offenses.
-Pierre Corneille
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It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend.
-Madame Dorothe Deluzy
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When you are happy you can forgive a great deal.
-Princess of Wales Diana
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Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.
-Marlene Dietrich
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Repentance is but want of power to sin.
-John Dryden
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Reason to rule but mercy to forgive:
The first is the law, the last prerogative.
-John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, 1687
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What is forgiven is usually well remembered.
-Louis Dudek
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Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.
-Tryon Edwards
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Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?
-George Eliot
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Forgive, son; men are men; they needs must err.
-Euripides
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A man must learn to forgive himself.
-Arthur Davison Ficke
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It is foolish to lay out money for the purchase of repentance.
-Benjamin Franklin
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Great is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins.
-Thomas Fuller
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Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
-Indira Gandhi
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The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
-Mahatma Gandhi
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If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
-Kahlil Gibran
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If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. They will make note of this and not remain in your debt long.
-Johann von Goethe
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People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.
-Johann von Goethe
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To forgive oneself? No, that doesn't work: we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe this is possible if we ourselves can forgive.
-Dag Hammarskjold
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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.
-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, 1964
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A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive
-Sydney J. Harris
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He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
-George Herbert
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Forgive you? -- Oh, of course, dear, a dozen times a week! We women were created forgiveness but to speak.
-Ella Higginson
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A woman who can't forgive should never have more than a nodding acquaintance with a man.
-Edward W. Howe
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The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.
-Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927
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Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.
-Kin Hubbard
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The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful --because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact.
-Aldous Huxley
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Classic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. ROLLING IN THE MUCK IS NOT THE BEST WAY OF GETTING CLEAN.
-Aldous Huxley
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If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.
-Robert G. Ingersoll
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I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge.
-Gerald G. Jampolsky
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We easily pardon an offense we had part in.
-Juoy
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Many people hold onto a grudge because it offers the illusion of power and a perverse feeling of security. But in fact, we are held hostage by our anger. It is never too late to forgive. But you can forgive too soon. I am especially wary of what I call saintly forgiveness. Premature forgiveness is common among people who avoid conflict. They're afraid of their own anger and the anger of others. But their forgiveness is false. Their anger goes underground. I define forgiving as letting someone back into your heart. This returns us to a loving state -- and not merely within the relationship -- we feel good about ourselves and the world. True forgiveness isn't easy, but it transforms us significantly. To forgive is to love and to feel worthy of love. In that sense, it is always worthwhile.
-Robert Karen, Phd, Bottom Line Personal, November 1, 2001
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Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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He who has not forgiven an enemy has never yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.
-Lauter
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Forgive thyself little, and others much.
-Robert Leighton
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Forgiveness is God's command.
-Martin Luther
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The life most pleasing to God, is that which is spent in most usefulness to our fellow-creatures. A man cannot love his God, and hate his brother: he cannot expect mercy, who shows none.
Alexander Campbell, Editor
-S. M. M'Corkle, The Sign of the Times: Christ's 2nd Coming Considered, With the Relative Events, "The Millennial Harbinger, Vol. IV, No. II"
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Repentance may be old-fashioned, but it is not outdated so long as there is sin.
-J. C. Macaulay
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The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.
-Orison Swett Marden
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Forgiveness is the oil of relationships.
-Josh Mcdowell
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True repentance is to cease from sinning.
-Ambrose of Milan
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Remorse is impotence, it will sin again. Only repentance is strong, it can end everything.
-Henry Miller
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The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.
-Margaret Mitchell
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One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind.
-Ogden Nash
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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
Therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true, or beautiful, or good, makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, could be accomplished alone;
Therefore, we must be saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint;
Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
-Reinhold Niebuhr
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If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 1888
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And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did to yourself?
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
-Plato
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How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?
-Alexander Pope
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To err is human; to forgive, divine.
-Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"
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He that hath promised pardon on our repentance hat not promised life till we repent.
-Francis Quarles
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Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.
-Jean Paul Richter
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We pardon to the extent that we love.
-Fran
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Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
-Jean Jacques Rousseau
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Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
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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.
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
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But with morning cool repentance came.
-Sir Walter Scott
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He who repents of having sinned is almost innocent.
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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He who has injured thee was stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
-George Bernard Shaw
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It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too.
-Henry Wheeler Shaw
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Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow: they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and the redeemer, Time.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
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True repentance has a double aspect. It looks upon things past with a weeping eye, and upon the future with a watchful eye.
-Robert Smith
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There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?
-Sophocles
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Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.
-Laurence Sterne
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I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
-Adlai Stevenson, "Time", retort to a heckler asking him to state his beliefs, November 1, 1963
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He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy, shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.
-Koran Sura
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Repentance is accepted remorse.
-Madame Swetchine
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The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the na?ve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
-Thomas Szasz
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It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there
http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/corrie.html
-Corrie Ten Boom, excerpt from The Hiding Place
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Forgive! How many will say, forgive, and find a sort of absolution in the sound to hate a little longer!
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
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For a working definition of forgiveness, I think of it as restoring love.
-Charles Thomas
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When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
-Dylan Thomas
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To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.
-John Tillotson
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Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.
-Mark Twain
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Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
-Mark Twain
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Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it
-Mark Twain
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It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
-Source Unknown
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Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
-Source Unknown
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Forgotten is forgiven.
-Source Unknown
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He who forgives ends the quarrel
-Source Unknown
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Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much.
-Oscar Wilde
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What power has love but forgiveness?
In other words
by its intervention
what has been done
can be undone.
What good is it otherwise?
-William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Brueghel, 1962
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God has a big eraser.
-Billy Zeoli
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Many have been ruined by their fortunes, and many have escaped ruin by the want of fortune. To obtain it the great have become little, and the little great.
-Johann Georg Zimmermann
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Books about Forgiveness
