Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)
Context: Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd —
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone —
For both were faiths, and both are gone.
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
Variant: Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much.
Attributed
“Since I love him so much, I can easily forgive him for loving himself.”
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIII : First weeks of Matrimony; Helen to Arthur
“Forgiving men is so much easier than forgiving women.”
Source: CAT'S EYE.
Spoken in Prague, 1787, to conductor Kucharz, who led the rehearsals for Don Giovanni, from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906).
“Forgive me, Marie. I was suffering too much. I wanted to be done with it.”
Source: Andre Cornelis (1886), Ch. 13
Context: I seized the sheet of paper; the lines were written upon it in characters rather larger than usual. How it shook in my hand while I read these words: "Forgive me, Marie. I was suffering too much. I wanted to be done with it." And he had had the strength to affix his signature!
So then, his last thought had been for her. In the brief moments that had elapsed between my blow with the knife, and his death, he had perceived the dreadful truth, that I should be arrested, that I would speak to explain my deed, that my mother would then learn his crime — and he had saved me by compelling me to silence.
