Shame Quotes

The difference between men and women is this--if you catch a woman butt-naked, she tries to cover the private parts with her hands. A man will sit there just like you found him even if he doesn't have much to be proud of.

~ Deb Baker

[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist.

~ Héloïse D'argenteuil

The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame: and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview.

~ Charles Dickens

Women most often experience shame as a web of layered, conflicting, and competing social-community expectations. The expectations dictate who we should be, what we should be, how we should be.

~ Brené Brown

The moment you have to recruit people to put another person down, in order to convince someone of your value is the day you dishonor your children, your parents and your God. If someone doesn't see your worth the problem is them, not people outside your relationship.

~ Shannon L. Alder

We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others.

~ Brené Brown

Reality may not be what you want it to be, but it is the reality you now must face. You can deny this reality and try to wish it away, or you can accept it and not waste any energy on wanting it to be different.

~ David W. Earle

Shame often causes me to hide my mistakes from others. But really, when I make a mistake, I should make it loud and clear, so I can see that it didn’t work as a strategy, and be able to make a course correction, either by myself or with the help of others.

~ Sharon Weil

When it comes to worry, our problem is we fear an invisible future that a timeless God has seen. Perhaps you should talk to Him about it.

~ Eddie Capparucci

The redeemed of God who are snatched from the flames by the hand of the Lord are still covered with ashes. We remain streaked with charcoal and blemished with soot. We are redeemed, but not sinless. Satan is quick to call attention to the dirt. He wants us to be more conscious of our sin than of God’s mercy.

~ R.c. Sproul

We're all a bit bad. We all have things in our lives that bring us shame and regret. Things that have hurt our souls or hurt the people we love. But 're all a bit good too. i reckon we're mostly good actually. And life is about trying to learn the balance, plot our place on the continuum... We're not just made up of good and bad: we're everything else too.

~ Alice Broadway

An artistic person taps into the destructive emotional energy of guilt and shame and the longing to love and be loveable and transforms these powerful emotions into a creative force.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Creativity is the highest form of intelligence. Over time, after developing a more advanced creative brain, I started feeling that my college education was more so something to be ashamed of rather than something to be proud of.

~ Criss Jami

Here. Here I am.You've taken everything from us, but not who we are! We still exist! One day grass will grow here and overgrow the ruins. Or day this will be forgotten. But you... No one will ever forget you! The shame of humanity.

~ Bruno Apitz

Shame, as an emotion, has a core meaning, in relating individuals to wider social groups and norms -- real or imagined.

~ Peter N. Stearns

By changing our history and our memory, they try to erase all our shame.

~ Ruth Ozeki

Is there shame in living off your fellow man or being unable to take care ofyourself? You bet. But a person who’s willing to work and pay their own waycan at least take pride in that even if they can’t take pride in anything else.

~ John Hawkins

She seemed dressed in all of me, stretched across my shame.All the torment and the pain leaked through and covered me.I'd do anything to have her to myself.Just to have her for myselfNow I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me sane.She is everything to me.The unrequited dreamA song that no one sings.The unattainable, Shes a myth that I have to believe inAll I need to make it real is one more reasonI don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me sad.

~ Slipknot

We hide our demons so good, that the angels we show, bare the shame on their faces.

~ Anthony Liccione

He stopped at an intersection, panting, rubbing at the twinge in his hamstrings, looking around, though he knew no cars were coming in either direction.Dropping forward at the waist Martin admitted that he was fucking himself up. Dr Leonowsky told him: hurting yourself is an articulation of self-disgust. It helps no one, prevents nothing. This wasn’t a glorious loss of control, he was fooling himself, it was self-harm.

~ Denise Mina

I don’t want to be my limitations. I don’t want to be my pain. I don’t want to be my embarrassment.

~ Kim Holden

God whispered, You endured a lot. For that I am truly sorry, but grateful. I needed you to struggle to help so many. Through that process you would grow into who you have now become. Didn't you know that I gave all my struggles to my favorite children? One only needs to look at the struggles given to your older brother Jesus to know how important you have been to me.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Her eyes bled from venomous anger...Her flower had been gruesomely deflowered...Her life had slowly turned into a blunder...There was no more thinking further....She would rather become a Foetus murderer Than end up a hopeless mother....Of course, she found peace in the formerUntil later years of emotional traumaOh, the foetus hunt was forever!The only thing you should abort is the thought of aborting your baby. Stop the hate and violence against innocent children.

~ Chinonye J. Chidolue

I think we can all agree that feeling shame is an incredibly painful experience. What we often don't realize is that perpetrating shame is equally as painful, and no one does that with the precision of a partner or a parent. These are the people who know us the best and who bear witness to our vulnerabilities and fears. Thankfully, we can apologize for shaming someone we love, but the truth is that those shaming comments leave marks. And shaming someone we love around vulnerability is the most serious of all security breaches. Even if we apologize, we've done serious damage because we've demonstrated our willingness to use sacred information as a weapon.

~ Brené Brown

Some days you feel like you're the worst of sinners, others like you're the most righteous person on earth. I am convinced that the former is when you're closest to God.

~ Criss Jami

Conviction says, 'My behavior was wrong.' Satan, on the other hand, floods our hearts with shame. Shame says, 'There is something wrong with me.

~ Dale Forehand

If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitous man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may-no matter how generous and good his nature- one day repent of the connection he formed in early life; and she may have the pain and torture of knowing that he does so.

~ Charles Dickens

I had been much more in love with my wife than she with me, that was all. Somehow, you were supposed to be ashamed of this, as though love were a perpetual jostling for the roles of pursuer and pursued. As if it didn’t take more courage to admit that someone held your hopes of happiness in their hands. As if it were a choice.

~ Amanda Craig

Cultural and religious traditions that forbid cross-cultural unions prevent peace on earth. Instead of rejoicing that our sons and daughters are heart-driven and love other humans outside of their familiar religious, social or cultural domains, we punish and insult them. This is wrong. Honor killings are not honorable by God. They are driven by ignorance and ego and nothing more. The Creator favors the man who loves over the man who hates. If you think God will punish you or your child for allowing them to marry outside of your tribe or faith, then you do not know God. Love is his religion and the light of love sees no walls. Anybody who unconditionally loves another human being for the goodness of their heart and nothing more is already on the right side of God.

~ Suzy Kassem

Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul,Pointing out the way to infamy and shame. - Creon

~ Sophocles

He was awed at her touch and what the human heart is capable of feeling - such sadness, such shame, but such acceptance such joy, all at the same time.

~ Jamie Ford

If you are filled with guilt and shame, it's because your heart remembers God but your head seems to have forgotten Him.

~ Kate Mcgahan

There is no other shame like senseless sin.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

My sin is my shame.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The circles of shame are vicious. Painful feelings of shame help cause people to be depressed and suicidal, these in turn become shameful aspects of the self. Being angry does not necessarily cause more anger, being envious does not necessarily cause more envy (though once we envy, we can also envy someone's lack of envy), but, in our culture at least, shame (and envy and self-pity) are things to be ashamed about. The two common feelings of suicide are hopelessness and powerlessness; each is shameful, and this additional experience of shame adds pain on pain. A man who despairs because he feels his prospects of having a family are hopeless also feels he will never lose the feeling of shame over being wifeless and childless. To be powerless to change one's life in ways that others can is cause to feel ashamed of one's powerlessness.

~ David L. Conroy

The only reason that some people aren’t ashamed of their parents and/or siblings is because they know that we know that they did not choose them.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don’t see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that.

~ David W. Earle

Shame is a state of mind.

~ A.d. Posey

We’re not broken. We’re not in the wrong bodies. We’re not inadequate. We’re not lesser. We’re not unwanted. We’re not fraudulent. We’re not undesirable. That’s all just a set of lies we tell to soothe the experience of the prisons we put ourselves in.

~ Agnostic Zetetic

Mind chatter: a clatter of left-brain rains of doubt, worry, guilt, shame in a thunderstorm of fear. Forgive the chatter, clear your mind.

~ Soul Dancer