Forgiveness Quotations
International Forgiveness Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in August each year. Contemplate what this event is all about with the following, thought-provoking collection of forgiveness quotations.
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- "To err is human; to forgive, infrequent."
-- Franklin P. Adams - "Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge."
-- Scott Adams - "Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me."
--Anonymous - "Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom."
-- Anonymous - "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the flower leaves on the heel of the one that crushed it."
-- John Arnott - "Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself."
--Ausonius - "They who forgive most shall be most forgiven."
-- Philip James Bailey - "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 - "It is difficult indeed to forgive a man for not forgiving you."
-- Timothy Hume Behrendt - "There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."
--Josh Billings - "It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
-- William Blake - "Forgive, forget. Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours. Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious."
--Phillips Brooks - "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."
--Dr. Joyce Brothers - "Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness."
--H. Jackson Brown - "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 ButlerForgive - "When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at al, but our hate is turning our days and nights into a hellish turmoil."
--Dale Carnegie - "To forgive is wisdom; to forget is genius."
-- Joyce Cary - "Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business."
--Robin Casarjian - "Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury."
--E. H. Chapin - "To understand is to forgive, even oneself."
--Alexander Chase - "If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears. "
--Glenn Clark - "The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself."
-- Charles Caleb Colton - "To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it."
--Confucius - "You are never so strong as when you forgive."
--Kimberly Converse - "Life is an adventure in forgiveness."
--Norman Cousins - "One forgives to the degree that one loves."
--Francois de La Rochefoucauld - "It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend."
-- Madame Dorothée Deluzy - "Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast."
--Marlene Dietrich - "May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? That we may forgive it."
-- Charles Dickens - "Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own. "
-- John DrydenBack Where You Belong - "His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong."
--- "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
--Ephesians 4:32- "You don't have to accept the invitation to get angry. Instead, practice forgiveness, empathy and encouragement."
--Dan Fallon- "Our friends are those who know their own faults well enough to forgive us ours."
--Moulton Farnham- "We must be willing to forgive without limit even as God forgives; otherwise we cannot be forgiven."
--Nels F. S. Ferre- "Here is a mental treatment guaranteed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to: sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy."
--Charles Fillmore- "Forgotten is forgiven."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald- "Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always makes you less than you are."
--Malcolm Forbes- "Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge."
--Isaac Friedmann- "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
--Mahatma Gandhi- "The law an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
--Mohatmas GandhiKohler's Pig - "If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive."
--Bahagavad Gita- "We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck . . . But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness. "
--Ellen Goodman- "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 again made clean."
--Dag Hammarskjold- "There's no point in burying the hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site."
--Sydney Harris- "Love is not real until forgiveness is real."
-- John F. Hayward- "It is easy enough to forgive your enemies if you have not the means to harm them."
-- Heinrich Heine- "Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago."
--Robert A. Heinlein- "He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven, for everyone has need to be forgiven."
--George Herbert- "As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind."
--Isabelle Holland- "A woman who can't forgive should never have more than a nodding acquaintance with a man."
-- Edgar Watson Howe- "Nobody ever forgets where he buried a hatchet."
--Kin Hubbard- "If you haven't forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?"
--Dolores HuertaForgive - "To forget a wrong is the best revenge."
--Italian proverb- "If we can still love those who have made us suffer, we love them all the more."
-- Mrs. Anna Brownell Jameson- "Forgiveness is an inner correction that lightens the heart. It is for our peace of mind first. Being at peace, we will now have peace to give to others, and this is the most permanent and valuable gift we can possibly give."
--Gerald Jampolsky- "Forgiveness means letting go of the past."
--Gerald Jampolsky- "One thing you will probably remember well is anytime you forgive and forget."
--Franklin P. Jones- "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
--- "We achieve inner health only through forgiveness-the forgiveness not only of others but also of ourselves."
--Joshua Loth Leibman- "Strength of character means the ability to overcome resentment against others, to hide hurt feelings, and to forgive quickly."
--Lawrence G. Lovasik- "Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life."
--George Macdonald- "A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account."
-- W. Somerset Maugham- "The more we know the better we forgive. Whoever feels deeply, feels for all who live."
--Madame de Stael- "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."
--Malachy McCourt- "Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits."
--Hannah More- "Women do not often have it in their power to give like men, but they forgive like Heaven."
-- Madame Suzanne Curchod Necker- "Forgiveness is the final form of love."
--Reinhold Niebuhr- "Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all of us love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour - unceasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family."
--Henri Nouwen- "When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive."
-- Alan Paton- "Forgiveness is better than revenge."
-- Pittacus of Mitylene- "To love is human, it is also human to forgive."
-- Plautus- "The forgiving state of mind is a magnetic power for attracting good."
--Catherine Ponder- "To err is human, to forgive, divine."
--Alexander PopeIf I Came Back to You and Said I'm Sorry... - "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."
--Robin Quivers- "The mind that too frequently forgives bad actions will at last forget good ones."
-- Frederic Reynolds- "Men are less forgiving than women."
-- Samuel Richardson- "Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another."
-- Jean Paul Richter- "True forgiveness is not an action after the fact, it is an attitude with which you enter each moment."
--David Ridge- "The man whom society will not forgive nor restore is driven into recklessness."
-- F. W. Robertson- "The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another."
--Joseph Roux- "The narrow soul knows not the godlike glory of forgiving."
-- Nicholas Rowe- "It is in pardoning that we are pardoned."
--Saint Francis of Assisi- "To forgive a fault in another is more sublime than to be faultless one's self."
-- George Sand- "The unforgivable sin is the refusal to pardon."
-- George Santayana- "Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were."
-- Cherie Carter-Scott- "Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing."
-- George Bernard Shaw- "Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself."
-- George Bernard Shaw- "The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing."
-- George Bernard Shaw- "Tis the most tender part of love, each other to forgive."
-- John SheffieldTo Forgive - "To Forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."
-- Lewis Smedes
Author of- "Don't tell friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you. "
--Logan Pearsall Smith- "A coward never forgives."
-- Laurence Sterne- "The heart has always the pardoning power."
-- Anne Sophie Swetchine- "We forgive too little, forget too much."
-- Anne Sophie Swetchine- "How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself."
--Publilius Syrus- "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
--Thomas Szasz- "And when a man injures and oppresses you and deals unjustly with you, you should deal kindly with him and forgive him. This you will strike at the root of hatred and enmity and he who is your enemy will become your friend."
--The Koran- "The sin
That neither God nor man can well forgive."
-- Lord Alfred Tennyson- "'Tis easier for the generous to forgive,
Than for offence to ask it."
-- James Thomson- "Without forgiveness, there's no future."
-- Desmond Tutu- "We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness is, the greater is our love."
--Paul Tillich- "Forgiveness is of high value, yet it costs nothing."
--UnknownDove of Peace - "Love is an act of endless forgiveness."
-- Peter Ustinov- "To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee."
--William H. Walton- "Forgiving those who hurt us is the key to personal peace."
--G. Weatherly- "It is easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit to forgive them for having witnessed your own."
--Jessamyn West- "Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much."
-- Oscar Wilde- "Many promising reconciliations have broken down because while both parties come prepared to forgive, neither party come prepared to be forgiven."
--Charles Williams- "The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world."
--Marianne Williamson- "Forgiveness is not an emotion, it's a decision."
--Randall Worley- "Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success. Always be the first to forgive; and forgive yourself first always."
--Dan Zadra - "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
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The entire Forgiveness program is on this one page. It runs online or offline.
From the Forgiveness Guide written by Johann Christoph Arnold.
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