Forgiveness Quotes

Since I’ve been home I’ve been trying hard to mend my relationship with my mother. Asking her to do things for me instead of brushing aside any offer of help, as I did for years out of anger. Letting her handle all the money I won. Returning her hugs instead of tolerating them. My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing her for something she couldn’t help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father’s death. Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.

~ Suzanne Collins

I define myself by helping others. This is what I do.Those people who want me to abandon my husband are asking me to put myself first and to judge him. The poor man has been judged unfairly by others. Why would I abandon him in his greatest need?

~ Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

~ Samuel Butler

They say let he who is without sin cast the first stone. And to be without sin requires absolute forgiveness. But when your memories are freshly opened wounds, forgiveness is the most unnatural of human emotions.

~ Emily Thorne

The truest grace is not to forgive, but to have never found fault.

~ Richard Paul Evans

To err is human, to forgive is divine... but I’m only a cardinal and cardinals are human, so rather than forgiving you I’m going to err towards beating you with this stick.

~ Mark Lawrence

We're a team. It's part of our job to help each other out, and to forgive each other quickly. Otherwise, we'd never get anything done.

~ Jeramey Kraatz

There are some who say that you should forgive everyone, even the people whohave disappointed you immeasurably. There are others who say you should not forgive anyone, and should stomp off in a huff no matter how many times they apologize. Of these two philosophies, the second one is of course much more fun, but it can also grow exhausting to stomp off in a huff every time someone has disappointed you, as everyone disappoints everyone eventually, and one can’t stomp off in a huff every minute of the day.

~ Lemony Snicket

Jane, I never meant to wound you thus...Will you ever forgive me?Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.

~ Charlotte Brontë

The past doesn't exist. There is nothing to be sorry for. Today is when we start to live. Look... look at the sea. The sea has no past. It is just there. It will never ask us to explain. The stars, the moon are there to light our way, to shine for us. What do they care what might have happened in the past? They are accompanying us, and are happy with that; can you see them shine? The stars are twinkling in the sky; would they do that if the past mattered? Wouldn't there be a huge storm if God wanted to punish us? We are alone, you and I, with no past, no memories, no guilt, nothing that can stand in the way of... our love.

~ Ildefonso Falcones

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

~ Coretta Scott King

In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feel like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.

~ Andy Stanley

Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He has done more--he has given you to me. And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one: Thanks! Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself. Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses! Cosette, that man is an angel!

~ Victor Hugo

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

~ Lewis B. Smedes

It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.

~ P.d. James

But when someone does wrong, when we make mistakes, we don’t say we’re sorry. We promise to make amends.”“I will.”“Mati en sheva yelu. This action will have no echo. It means we won’t repeat the same mistakes, that we won’t continue to do harm.

~ Leigh Bardugo

Hypocrisy versus authenticity among men is not always so black and white, and as is righteousness, humility is often self-proclaimed. The Church is most definitely supposed to be a hospital for the spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically sick, hurting, and broken individual, yet ironically, many of its critics are those who ran away and permanently denounced its members after they visited and felt that they were sneezed on.

~ Criss Jami

You never know how long you have-there might not BE a later-so don't let things go unsaid or unforgiven.

~ Dawn Metcalf

You know some religious scholars believe that when faced with overwhelming temptation you should commit a small sin just to relieve the pressure a bit.

~ Bree Despain

Forgiveness, which is the place that every story turns, the chance we give each other.

~ Beth Kephart

Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.

~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The opponent strikes you on your cheek, and you strike him on the heart by your amazing spiritual audacity in turning the other cheek. You wrest the offensive from him by refusing to take his weapons, by keeping your own, and by striking him in his conscience from a higher level. He hits you physically, and you hit him spiritually.

~ E. Stanley Jones

I can always forgive where I understand.

~ Jude Morgan

At the moment, it's simply a difference of opinon between the Doctor and you.. You both want the best. You've only tried to kill him a couple of times... I mean, don't worry about that. I've seen people do much worse to him and at the end of the day he'll take them out for pizza. He's very forgiving. The Doctor is brilliant,' [said Rory]

~ James Goss

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

~ Ted Chiang

I knew that my heart and mind would always be tempted to feel anger--to find blame and hate. But I resolved that when the negative feelings came upon me, I wouldn't wait for them to grow or fester. I would always turn immediately to the Source of all true power: I would turn to God and let His love and forgiveness protect and save me.

~ Immaculée Ilibagiza

God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't.

~ Ava Gardner

The Lord does not forgive excuses, He forgives sin.

~ Rick Joyner

Pity is not forgiveness, nor is gratitude absolution.

~ Pierce Brown

Some people are desperate because they don't know how to ask for His grace.

~ Bree Despain

A man does not have to feel less than human to realize his sin; oppositely, he has to realize that he gets no special vindication for his sin.

~ Criss Jami

Disobedience happens not when we think too much grace but when we think too little of it

~ Tullian Tchividjian

The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.

~ Charles Baxter

She thought about how it was so simple with animals. They gave their hearts without question or fear. They had no expectations. They were so easy to love. If people could only be like that, no one would ever be hurt, she thought. No one would ever need to learn how to forgive.

~ Elizabeth George

We don't forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need itwe need it.

~ Bree Despain

What we love once, we love forever. Shall there be joy in heaven over those who repent, yet no forgiveness for them upon earth?--Wanda

~ Ouida

Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.Acts 13:38

~ Anonymous

Maybe the word forgive points in the wrong direction, since it's something you mostly give yourself, not anyone else: you put down the ugly weight of old suffering, untie yourself from the awful, and walk away from it.

~ Rebecca Solnit

And then, when there is nothing else between us but love, we can begin to find a way to truly be together.

~ S.j. Watson

Amo amas amat amamus amatis amant amavi amavisti amavit amavimus amavistis amaverunt amavero amaveris amaverit… Everything was love. Everything will be love. Everything has been love. Everything would be love. Everything would have been love. Ah, that was it, the truth at last. Everything would have been love. The huge eye, which had become an immense sphere, was gently breathing, only it was not an eye nor a sphere but a great wonderful animal covered in little waving legs like hairs, waving oh so gently as if they were under water. All shall be well and all shall be well said the ocean. So the place of reconciliation existed after all, not like a little knot hole in a cupboard but flowing everywhere and being everything. I had only to will it and it would be, for spirit is omnipotent only I never knew it, like being able to walk on the air. I could forgive. I could be forgiven. I could forgive. Perhaps that was the whole of it after all. Perhaps being forgiven was just forgiving only no one had ever told me. There was nothing else needful. Just to forgive. Forgiving equals being forgiven, the secret of the universe, do not whatever you do forget it. The past was folded up and in the twinkling of an eye everything had been changed and made beautiful and good.

~ Iris Murdoch