Forgiveness Quotes

None of us deserve the good things that come our way. It's by grace, love and forgiveness that any of us experience joy.

~ J.b. Mcgee

These two poles, the unconditional and the conditional, are absolutely heterogeneous, and must remain irreducible to one another. They are nonetheless indissociable: if one wants, and it is necessary, forgiveness to become effective, concrete, historic; if one wants it to arrive, to happen by changing things, it is necessary that this purity engage itself in a series of conditions of all kinds (psychosociological, political, etc.). It is between these two poles, irreconcilable but indissociable, that decisions and responsibilities are to be taken. Yet despite all the confusions which reduce forgiveness to amnesty or to amnesia, to acquittal or prescription, to the work of mourning or some political therapy of reconciliation, in short to some historical ecology, it must never be forgotten, nevertheless, that all of that refers to a certain idea of pure and unconditional forgiveness, without which this discourse would not have the least meaning. What complicates the question of ‘meaning’ is again what I suggested a moment ago: pure and unconditional forgiveness, in order to have its own meaning, must have no ‘meaning’, no finality, even no intelligibility. It is a madness of the impossible.

~ Jacques Derrida

The one who realizes the mistake, seeks forgiveness and searches for kindness, must be forgiven.

~ M.f. Moonzajer

I remain ‘torn’ (between a ‘hyberbolic’ ethical vision of forgiveness, pure forgiveness, and the reality of a society at work in pragmatic processes of reconciliation). But without power, desire, or need to decide. The two poles are irreducible to one another, certainly, but they remain indissociable. In order to inflect politics, or what you just called the ‘pragmatic processes’, in order to change the law (which, thus, finds itself between the two poles, the ‘ideal’ and the ‘empirical’ – and what is more important to me here is, between these two, this universalising mediation, this history of the law, the possibility of this progress of the law), it is necessary to refer to a ‘“hyperbolic” ethical vision of forgiveness’. Even if I were not sure of the words ‘vision’ or ‘ethics’ in this case, let us say that only this inflexible exigence can orient a history of laws, and evolution of the law. It alone can inspire here, now, in the urgency, without waiting, response and responsibilities.

~ Jacques Derrida

...and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth.

~ John Green

A real man does not beg forgiveness but earn it.

~ M.f. Moonzajer

Forgiveness in no way requires you to trust the one you forgive. It doesn't mean the relationship must be restored. p. 61

~ Roberta Fish

Forgiveness: best for cleansing. Forgetfulness best for repetition.

~ Soul Dancer

We don't think of ourselves as 'unforgiving' or 'bitter'- those words imply that we are somehow personally responsible. We prefer to talk about how deeply we have been 'hurt', implying that we are merely helpless victims. Are those who have been deeply wounded destined to live damaged lives? Or is there real healing for deep hurt? I say there is. . . .We've also deceived ourselves into believing that we can love and serve God and be 'good Christians,' while failing to forgive. When are we going to get honest?

~ Byron Paulus

The difference between black and white is Grace! EL

~ Evinda Lepins

God’s forgiveness doesn’t come cheaply, nor is it a ticket to do what we jolly well please because there’s a get out of jail free card at the end. Instead, it is the life-changing embrace of love that welcomes us when we’ve no reason to expect it. We cannot fail deeply enough for God to give us up.

~ Peggy Haymes

In every sufferings you've encountered, there will be an opportunity to settle things in a right place. If that comes, grab it. Learn to forgive.

~ Mahadena Madid

What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you.

~ Jodi Picoult

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.

~ C.s. Lewis

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do--we do it all the time.

~ Alice Munro

Here’s a question every angry man and woman needs to consider: How long are you going to allow people you don’t even like — people who are no longer in your life, maybe even people who aren’t even alive anymore — to control your life? How long?

~ Andy Stanley

Dogs, for a reason that can only be described as divine, have the ability to forgive, let go of the past, and live each day joyously. It’s something the rest of us strive for.

~ Jennifer Skiff

Cultivo una rosa blanca,En julio como en enero,Para el amigo sinceroQue me da su mano franca.Y para el cruel que me arrancaEl corazon con que vivo,Cardo ni oruga cultivoCultivo una rosa blanca.I have a white rose to tendIn July as in January;I give it to the true friendWho offers his frank hand to me.And to the cruel one whose blowsBreak the heart by which I live,Thistle nor thorn do I give:For him, too, I have a white rose.

~ José Martí

Forgiveness makes you feel better. As soon as you forgive, you're free.

~ Karen Kingsbury

Love moves in sync with the cadence of forgiveness, sings in tune with the melody of acceptance, and dances in rhythm with the music of companionship.

~ Steve Maraboli

Never lose Faith. Always have hope. Love for always.

~ J.b. Mcgee

Katherine is the master of anger; she dominates anger. She takes anger in her hands and twists its neck, ripping its head off. She throws anger against the wall and stomps it to death. Her voice rises, it changes, it conjures up ghosts and cusses in a spitting Irish brogue. Then, when she's tapped out empty, she picked anger up between her a thumb and a forefinger and carries it outside and drops it in the trash. On her way back, she scoops up forgiveness like a bouquet, sniffs it deep and arranges it in a vase. She sets forgiveness down, shining in the middle of everything.

~ Colleen Clayton

Inevitable is not the same as immediate, Sieh--and love does not mandate forgiveness.

~ N.k. Jemisin

Because I have forgiven my past, and God has forgiven my past, no person on earth can make me denounce my past. It's what made me who I am today.

~ Julie-Anne

Women have endeavored to guide men to love because patriarchal thinking has sanctioned this work even as it has undermined it by teaching men to refuse guidance…A useful gift all love’s practitioners can give is the offering of forgiveness. It not only allows us to move away from blame, from seeing others as the cause of our sustained lovelessness, but it enables us to experience agency, to know we can be responsible for giving and finding love.

~ Bell Hooks

It's not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch. He finally whispered, We also need to forgive ourselves.

~ Mitch Albom

Home is

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Then Caspian caught up a battle-axe and rushed upon the Lord Drinian to kill him, and Drinian stood still as a stock for the death blow. But when the axe was raised, Caspian suddenly threw it away and cried out, I have lost my queen and my son: shall I lose my friend also? And he fell upon the Lord Drinian's neck and embraced him and both wept, as their friendship was not broken.

~ C.s. Lewis

We are forgiven, that we may be like Him who forgives us.

~ Horatius Bonar

Sometimes lost treasures can be reclaimed.

~ Rebecca Wells

Self redemption is the first step to exoneration from guilt.

~ Dennis E. Adonis

Forgive is the last best thing i can do.

~ Ariel Seraphino

I know he's a good person. And he said he was sorry. And I love him. And when you love a person, you have to forgive him sometimes.

~ Gabrielle Zevin

Sometimes Edith came into the room and sat on the bed beside him and they talked. They talked of trivial things – of people they knew casually, of a new building going up on the campus, of an old one torn down; but what they said did not seem to matter. A new tranquility had come between them. It was a quietness that was like the beginning of love; and almost without thinking, Stoner knew why it had come. They had forgiven themselves for the harm they had done each other, and they were rapt in a regard of what their life together might have been.Almost without regret he looked at her now; in the soft light of late afternoon her face seemed young and unlined. If I had been stronger, he thought; if I had known more; if I could have understood. And finally, mercilessly, he thought: if I had loved her more. As if it were a long distance it had to go, his hand moved across the sheet that covered him and touched her hand. She did not move; and after a while he drifted into a kind of sleep.

~ John Williams

To forgive is to unlock the cage of another's folly to set ourselves free.

~ Richard Paul Evans

Because I have forgiven my past, and God has forgiven my past, no person can make me denounce my past. It made me who I am today, and the choices I make from this moment on are what will ultimately define me.

~ Julie-Anne

She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite.

~ Lauren Destefano

We all make mistakes, we all have fears, and we all have weaknesses. Behind all that is our essential self. When our essential self has made contact with another, the light is dazzling and would fill the universe. The challenge of enchantment is to remain faithful to that light, to believe in it when it is not so apparent. Then that light becomes an incandescent glow and it wraps itself around everything.

~ Marianne Williamson

Let's forgive someone for Valentines day, it's a great way to show love, and forgive yourself too for the hurt you held onto.

~ Jay Woodman

When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.

~ Timothy J. Keller