“We learn our lessons; we get hurt; we want revenge. Then we realize that actually, happiness and forgiving people is the best revenge.”
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Madonna 107
American singer, songwriter, and actress 1958Related quotes

As quoted by General Sir Charles Fergusson in a memorandum (10 July 1945), recalling conversations with Adenauer in 1918-1919, at the end of World War I. As published in Adenauer : The Father of the New Germany (2000) by Charles Williams, p. 293 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=7mhpKYpugJsC&pg=PA293

As quoted in Dabiq, issue #12; published November 18, 2015, pg. 2
2014, 2015
Source: http://www.clarionproject.org/docs/islamic-state-isis-isil-dabiq-magazine-issue-12-just-terror.pdf

“Revenge is not always sweet: once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim.”
History and Utopia (1960)
“Happiness is the best revenge, you know? Just be happy. It's a choice.”
Source: Heart of the Matter
The Quotable Sir John

“Forgiveness is better than revenge.”
As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in Life of Pittacus, i. 76, citing Heraclitus as his source.
Pittacus made this remark to justify his release of his captured enemy Alcaeus.
According to William Shepard Walsh, in Handy-book of Literary Curiosities (1892), p. 392, Epictetus, quoting from the same source, gives the phrase thus: "Forgiveness is better than punishment; for the one is proof of a gentle, the other of a savage, nature."

“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
Source: Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873), p. 235 https://books.google.com/books?id=HJUIXmDzqPcC&pg=PA235

The Shoe workers' journal, Volume 16 (1915) p. 4
Variant: What does labor want? We want more school houses and less jails. More books and less guns. More learning and less vice. More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge. We want more … opportunities to cultivate our better natures.

“We cannot learn our lessons at our companion’s expense”
Alle spese del compagno non si può imparare.
Act V., Scene I. — (Il Quercivola).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 247.
L’Alessandro (1544)