Forgiveness Quotes

Forgiveness doesn't mean what happened wasn't wrong or didn't matter. If it wasn't wrong or didn't hurt, there wouldn't be anything to forgive.

~ Leigh Powers

She became fascinated by the statue of Edith Cavell and would stand at the base of it in the freezing cold of a December morning, looking up: -Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone-. Sometimes those words made her cry. The tears would come uncontrollably and they would not stop. And in those moments Anna found forgiveness and it made her free. But they were only moments. Forgiveness is a hard thing to hang on to.

~ Miranda Emmerson

What happens when you give people a 2nd chance? They blame you for it. What happens when you give people a 3rd chance? They ridicule you. What happens when you give them a 4th chance? They make sure they will have a 5th. What happens when you give them a 5th? They blame you for everything and laugh at you. What happens when you give them a 6th? At this point, they try to kill you by accident before you even have another chance of leaving them. What happens when you give them a 7th chance? They punish you for all the chances you have given them before and betray you in the most horrible way they can, proving that they didn’t deserve not even one chance at anything. Forgiveness is not for everyone, and those that deserve it never reach the point of even needing it.

~ Robin Sacredfire

He nods, looking through the pictures on the screen on the back of his camera. Some relationships can only exist as memories. But unlike ephemeral digital images that can be sorted and deleted, we can’t erase the past. We have to learn to live with all the images that are stored in love's archive, memories tagged good and bad. No Photoshopping. Accept the negative before moving forward.

~ Shannon Mullen

The pardoned soul is out of the gunshot of hell (Rom. 8:33).

~ Thomas Watson

By seizing every opportunity for kindness, forgiveness, healing, and love that crosses my path each day, I hope that my death, although perhaps sad for some, will be gracefully concluded.

~ Lisa J. Shultz

The only reason I asked is because, in terms of learning how to forgive someone, I’ve been where you’re headed. Don’t let her win; don’t let this eat away at you until there’s nothing left.

~ Valenciya Lyons

I entered the picture in the eleventh hour as a guide to the exit of his life. I navigated as best I could the role of end-of-life shepherd—a journey that I had never taken before. I have to forgive myself for what I did not know. And I have to forgive him for the times that he felt unequipped to deal with the unknown.

~ Lisa J. Shultz

I believe one of the most important reasons I am here today is to practice forgiveness and to learn the power of it as a gift to others and myself. By focusing on forgiveness in my life today, I am promoting my healing and lessening my regrets.

~ Lisa J. Shultz

The shift from thinking that I must feel forgiveness to the practice of repetitive giving forgiveness has helped me in my healing journey.

~ Lisa J. Shultz

If I wanted, I could come up with reasons to be angry with everyone I know; there are sins of commission or omission I could hang on every last person in my life… The truth is, I will never run out of people to indict. We are all guilty of so many failures to love well that if I wanted--and sometimes I do want--I could find some fault or transgression in everyone I know that I could then use to justify writing them off. I could blaze that trail to hell if I wanted to, and just the thought of it scares me off

~ Russ Ramsey

Embrace YOU...Believe in yourself, in this very moment...forgive yourself for all mistakes and 'bad' decisions you may have made in the past. Do not allow others opinions or judgements of who you were yesterday or decades ago define who you are today. Each and every day opens new doors for miracles of healing to occur in our lives. Embrace these miracles, big or small, even those you may presently be unaware of. Live in this moment, for this is all we have. Give thanks to your Higher Power for all that you are, for the very breath that allows life, love, and abundance to flow to you and through you forever more. Live in the Light of All That IS.

~ Angie Karan

Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.

~ M.l. Stedman

This is the way it ought to be, he thought to himself, to be able to dance with a girl you like and really get a kick out of it because everything’ on an even keel and one’s worries are of the usual ones of unpaid bills and sickness in the family and being late to work too often. Wh can’t it be that way for me? Nobody’s looking twice at us. Nobody’s asking me where I was during the war or what the hell I am doing back on the coast. There’s no trouble to be had without looking for it. Everything’s the same, just as it used to be. No bad feelings except for those that have always been and probably always will. It’s a matter of attitude. Mine needs changing. I’ve got to love the world the way I used to. I’ve got to love it and the people so I’ll feel good, and feeling good will make life worthwhile. There’s no point in crying about what’s done. There’s a place for me and Emi and Freddie here on the dance floor and out there in the hustle of things if we’ll let it be that way. I’ve been fighting it and hating it and letting my bitterness against myself and Ma and Pa and even Taro throw the whole universe out of perspective. I want only to go on living and be happy. I’ve only to let myself do so.

~ John Okada

Forgiveness is a process, an admittedly difficult one that often can feel like a rigorous spiritual practice.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We cannot instantaneously force ourselves to forgive—and forgiveness happens at a different pace for everyone and is dependent on the particulars of any given situation.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Telling the story, acknowledging what has happened and how you feel, is often a necessary part of forgiveness.

~ Sharon Salzberg

You must also forgive yourself. You must forgive yourself for any past mistakes and failures that you cannot forget.

~ Laura Aranda

Forgive everyone for everything, and sleep with a clean heart!Good Night Universe!

~ Napz Cherub Pellazo

There would be no grand absolution, only forgiveness meter out in these precious sips. I would well up from Hugh's heart in spoonfuls, and he would feed it to me. And it would be enough.

~ Sue Monk Kidd

Forgiveness is the ocean that already surrounds us when we launch our prayers of repentance to God. We do not manufacture the ocean by our repentance, we sail in the peace its boundless waters provide.

~ Bryan Chapell

Forgiving yourself can prove as difficult as licking a scab off your elbow.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

MEDITATION ON THE BUS. Rainy and cold. Thinking gloomily of the sins and shortcomings of others, it suddenly came to me to remember my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others. If I concern myself with my own sins and lament them, if I remember my own failures and lapses, I will not be resentful of others. This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind. It makes one unhappy to judge people and happy to love them.

~ Dorothy Day

You are following Jesus and shaping our world in the power of the Spirit. And when the final consummation comes, the work that you have done - whether in Bible study or biochemistry, whether in preaching or in pure mathematics, whether in digging ditches or in composing symphonies - will stand, will last.The fact that we live between, so to speak, the beginning of the End and the end of the End, should enable us to come to terms with our vocation to be for the world that Jesus was for Israel, and in the power of the Spirit to forgive and retain sins.

~ N.t. Wright

...a guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul. Therefore, an age without a sense of sin, in which people are not even sorry for not being sorry for their sins, is in a serious predicament. Likewise an age with a Christianity so eager to forgive that it denies the need for forgiveness. For such an age, therefore, Lent can scarcely be too long!

~ Edna Hatlestad Hong

He's come a long way, but he's still never accepted that he's forgiven.

~ Mary Jane Hathaway

Before you reach the point of forgiveness, you go through the phase where you pray... for every possible misfortune and ill luck to strike them dead while you sit and watch.

~ Joyce Rachelle

I let my anger consume me.”“It’s understandable,” she said.“It may be understandable,” replied Pug, “but it is no more forgivable for being understandable.

~ Raymond E. Feist

You never know what's going to happen in life.

~ Therese Crutcher-Marin

KIRK: Anger will get you through the tough times when thinking happy f*cking thoughts about family and friends won’t do it. Just don’t let the anger eat you up until it’s all you got left. I know too many good men ruined by their resentments.

~ Bijou Hunter

There is no amount of bad karma that can compete with a contrite spirit and God's forgiveness.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Come. There is a way to be good again...

~ Khaled Hosseini

Then forgive him. And if you can't forgive, at least forget, for he meant you no harm, however rash that act was.

~ Christopher Paolini

Forgiveness for ourselves and other is one of the main elements in growth. It allows us to free ourselves of the issues that are holding us down.

~ Nanette Mathews

Hell is a place reserved for people who want their enemies to rot in Hell for sinning against them. Heaven is a place of amnesty, where the trespassers have forgiven their trespassers.

~ Atom Tate

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.

~ Lewis B. Smedes

The Queen (Victoria) wrote generously to her mother, 'I quite understand your feelings on the occasion of Sir John Conroy's death. . . I will not speak of the past and the many sufferings he entailed on us by creating divisions between you and me which could never have existed otherwise, they are buried with him.. For his poor wife and children I am truly sorry. Thanking the Queen for her letter the Duchess of Kent wrote 'Yes, Sir John Conroy's death was a most painful shock. I shall not try and excuse the many errors that unfortunate man committed, but it would be very unjust if I allowed all the blame to be thrown on him. I am in justice bound to accuse myself. . . I erred in believing blindly, in acting with out refection. . . I allowed myself unintentionally to be led led to hurt you, my dearest child, for whom I would have given at every moment my life! Refection came always too late, but not the deserved punishment! My sufferings were great, very great. God be praised that those terrible times are gone by and that only death can separate me from you My beloved Victoria.

~ Cecil Woodham-Smith

Love may be the most excellent way, but it is also a difficult path to follow and one on which we will most assuredly stumble and fall. If we are not to lose our way, Humility must be our guide, and if we are to surmount disappointment and regain our footing, Forgiveness must be our porter.

~ James Castleton

To forgive is a gift of God that permits us to let go of our past hurts.

~ Jean Vanier

The word forever had been coming up a lot during my two years among the publicly shamed. Jonah and Justine and people like them were being told, 'No. There is no door. There is no way back in. We don't offer any forgiveness.' But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don't?

~ Jon Ronson