Shame Quotes

He dressed quickly in silence, refusing her tissues. He shakily pulled a wad of uncounted notes from his wallet, abandoned them in the no man’s land between, and escaped in an indecent haste, leaving the shameful tableau in his wake.

~ Darren White

No need to feel shame for what you are.

~ Deyth Banger

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.

~ Charles Dickens

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

~ Charles Dickens

Be ashamed not of being single, or, unemployed. That comes standard.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

These secrets are not secrets per se but are truths hidden from public view. I had to write this book. There had to be a reason I survived to tell this story.

~ Rebecca Allard

Stop making shame a virtue.

~ Rebekah Elizabeth Gamble

In the grand scheme of life, nobody grows old keeping their soul unblemished.

~ A.j. Darkholme

Sometimes people feel they need to control everything, as if they could! Matters of life and death are out of your hands. The more you come to realize this, the harder you try to prove that you can control SOMETHING, anything. All you can really control is your response to what happens. You cannot control matters of life or death and because of this you are not accountable. You cannot be held liable for anything that you have no power over. Guilt, shame and blame make no sense when circumstances are beyond your control.

~ Kate Mcgahan

To be free to roam our own consciousness and be responsible for ourselves, a letting go process is required. We have to let go of how others define us; what damaging messages remain from childhood; how others define our relationship with the creator; and what expectations they may have for us.

~ David W. Earle

March 28, 1987: Today I read in the New York Times that all of the officers who killed Michael Stewart were again dismissed of charges. Continually dismissed, but in their minds they will never forget. They know they killed him. They will never forget his screams, his face, his blood. The must live with that forever. I hope in their next life they are tortured like they tortured him. They should be birds captured early in life, put in cages, purchased by a fat, smelly, ugly lady who keeps them in a small dirty cage up near the ceiling while all day she cooks bloody sausages and the blood spatters their cage and the frying fat burns their matted feathers and they can nerf escape the horrible fumes of her burnt meat. One day the cage will fall to the ground and a big fat ugly cat will kick them about, play with them like a toy, and slowly kill them and leave their remains to be accidentally stepped on by the big fat pig lady who can’t see her own feet because of her huge sagging tits. An eye for an eye … I’m not afraid of anything I’d ever done. Not ashamed of anything.

~ Keith Haring

This murdered girl troubles me. After the first shock, nobody at school says much about her. Even Cordelia does not want to talk about her. It’s as if this girl has done something shameful, herself, by being murdered.

~ Margaret Atwood

My hands are of your colour, but I shame To wear a heart so white.

~ William Shakespeare

Children who are victimized through sexual abuse often begin to develop deeply held tenets that shape their sense of self: 'My worth is my sexuality. I'm dirty and shameful. I have no right to my own physical boundaries.' That shapes their ideas about the world around them: 'No one will believe me. Telling the truth results in bad consequences. People can't be trusted.' It doesn't take long for children to being to act in accordance with these belief systems.For girls who have experienced incest, sexual abuse, or rape, the boundaries between love, sex, and pain become blurred. Secrets are normal, and shame is a constant.

~ Rachel Lloyd

Abuse is a parasite that feeds off hate and shame, growing in size and strength with silence.

~ Nikki Sex

And if we do speak out, we risk rejection and ridicule. I had a best friend once, the kind that you go shopping with and watch films with, the kind you go on holiday with and rescue when her car breaks down on the A1. Shortly after my diagnosis, I told her I had DID. I haven't seen her since. The stench and rankness of a socially unacceptable mental health disorder seems to have driven her away.

~ Carolyn Spring

This disease comes with a package: shame. When any other part of your body gets sick, you get sympathy.

~ Ruby Wax

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.

~ Alice Munro

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.

~ John Updike

Probably one or two moments in your whole life you will hear a dark whispering spirit, a voice coming from the center of things. It will have blades for lips and will not stop until it speaks the one secret thing at the heart of it all. Kneeling on the floor, unable to stop shuddering, I heard it plainly. It said, You are unlovable...

~ Sue Monk Kidd

Swann, with that almost arrogant charity of a man of the world who, amid the dissolution of all his own moral prejudices, finds in another's shame merely a reason for treating him with a friendly benevolence...

~ Marcel Proust

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES when we go against our instincts? What are the consequences of not speaking out? What are the consequences of guilt, shame, and doubt?

~ Terry Tempest Williams

Picture your worst fear or most shameful experience becoming associated with an area of your body, and then magnify this image many times over. Within the construct of body dysmorphic disorder, a body part takes on an identity of its own. The body area of concern becomes profoundly associated with the individual's sense of self: The individual with BDD misses the forest through the trees, and rather than seeing many different body parts that together shape outward appearance, the despised physical feature becomes the focal point of their existence. It can easily become the singular element within the person's life and a gauge that determines the entirety of their self-worth.

~ Winograd Arie M

Shame is a destroyer of self-worth.

~ Shannon Tanner

When life beats us down, we often do not feel worthwhile to ourselves nor to anyone else. Often, we try to hide our feelings of inadequacy in pursuit of perfection, which develops into self-loathing. If only we can be perfect, then we can be okay.

~ David W. Earle

When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.

~ Brené Brown

I also don’t think there’s any shame in saying that when I was raped, I became a victim, and to this day, while I am also many other things, I am still a victim.

~ Roxanne Gay

No one has the right to demand that your body be something other than what it is.

~ Agnostic Zetetic

There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame;(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.

~ Sun Tzu

Is this what she would have wanted, Hawke? Ronan asked quietly. Justice at the cost of an innocent man and his child?

~ Sloane Kennedy

And I will remember how we made the sun blush every morning.

~ Malak El Halabi

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.

~ Brené Brown

How can the intensity of this shame be understood by those who have never experienced it? How can they understand the strength of the motivations produced by the desire to escape from it?

~ Didier Eribon

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

~ Jonathan Swift

I must fight with my weapons. Not his. Not selfishness and brutality and shame and resentment.

~ John Fowles

But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they lift the load for some of us who take it quite comfortably that we're humankind, and not angels.

~ Ellis Peters

Guilty people apologize and also take steps to avoid repetition. Shame, in contrast, is a more global emotion, which can emerge in response to the same kind of wrong act and violation of standards. It may develop earlier in life than guilt-- guilt requires more cognitive sorting capacity-- but above all it emphasizes self-abasement. It is the self that is at fault, not the commission of the act. This creates greater pain and intensity than guilt. A shamed person feels very bad indeed-- but also makes it more difficult to escape.

~ Peter N. Stearns

Without guilt or remorse, shame was an empty emotion. Indeed, shame would not be shame.

~ Sylvain Reynard

My needs were covered by layer upon layer of denial. I was scrambling for reasons. But the truth was, even if he had had a successful career, I would have used it as an excuse to complain about neglect. He could never actually win. I was running a very common script, that of deciphering why he wasn’t enough for me and why I needed someone else—as if someone else could give me everything. As if there was one person who could be my Mr. Right and who could satisfy every ever-changing facet of my personality. At that point I still believed that this was possible…desirable…and necessary.

~ Louisa Leontiades

Don't underestimate the power of a guilty mind. Never underestimate self-shame and self-destruction.

~ Tim Hawken