Quotes for forgiveness

A collection of quotes on the topic of forgiveness, love, doing, god.

Best quotes for forgiveness

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

As quoted in Mayor (1984) by Ed Koch
Attributed

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much.

“To understand is to forgive.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

“I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

“It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 4, plate 91, line 1

“To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

Source: An Essay on Criticism (1711)

“The more you know yourself, the more you forgive yourself.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“Life does not forgive weakness.”

Adolf Hitler book Hitler's Letters and Notes

17 February 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)
Variant: Life does not forgive weakness.
Source: Hitler's Letters and Notes

“Do not feel ashamed to forgive and forget.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha, Letter 53: An order to Malik Al-Ashtar
Variant: The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget.

“The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Lois McMaster Bujold quote: “The gods…the gods may forgive much, to a truly penitent heart.”

Wu Chun quote: “Life is short, be grateful, be kind, be happy. Forgive and forget ... Love and peace.”

Quotes for forgiveness

“I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing… forgiveness.”

Louis Zamperini (1917–2014) Italian-American middle distance runner

Variant: I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's healing, actually, it's real healing...
Forgiveness.

Life, Hate, Thinking, Hurt

“I understand that you are claiming it is almost impossible to forgive, but only easier to forget. The truth is that, you can only forgive that which you have forced your mind to forget. We must forget first, then forgiveness will come by itself.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Understanding, Forgetting, Truth

“When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel

Press conference in London (1969), as quoted in A Land of Our Own : An Oral Autobiography (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242
Variant: When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.

Peace, Time

“Forgive but don’t forget, girl keep your head up. And when he tells you you ain’t nothing, don’t believe him. And if he can’t learn to love you, you should leave him.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Love, Girl, Learning, Forgetting

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Life, Death, Lie, Peace

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Courageous, Courage

“A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.”

Ruth Bell Graham (1920–2007) Congressional Gold Medal recipient

Wedding, Marriage, Happiness

“Forgiveness is too easy. I can forget by indifference, but not forgive. I prefer revenge.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

Revenge, Indifference, Forgetting

“Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

Way, History

“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

Freedom

“Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Source: movie Amadeus (1984)

Music

“Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Thom Merrilin
(15 October 1991)

For women, Women, Men, Fools

“You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

“God may forgive you, but I never can.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

To the Countess of Nottingham, as quoted in The History of England Under the House of Tudor (1759) by David Hume, Vol. II, Ch. 7.

God

“Suffering and Pain are two of many excruciating roadblocks in your internal Maze.
The only way out of the Maze of Misery is to Forgive.
It won't be easy at all…
but the path you chose at the time…led you to here.
Forgiving is the Key to set you Free!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain, Time, Suffering, Way

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Heart

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

"Personal Conduct" http://books.google.com/books?id=IYOcAQAAQBAJ&q=%22The+stupid+neither+forgive+nor+forget+the+na%C3%AFve+forgive+and+forget+the+wise+forgive+but+do+not+forget%22&pg=PA177#v=onepage, p. 51. http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15151528W/The_Second_Sin <br class="br">The Second Sin (1973)

Wise, Life, Stupidity, Forgetting

“Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:
And some condemned for a fault alone.”

William Shakespeare Measure for Measure

Source: Measure for Measure

“The four absolutes we all have in our minds: love, justice, evil, and forgiveness.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Love, Justice, Evil

“The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.”

Louis Zamperini (1917–2014) Italian-American middle distance runner

Source: Devil at My Heels

Past, Personality

“Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

“I think there comes a point where you have to grow up and get over yourself, lighten up…and forgive.”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Vogue (2004)

Thinking

“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.”

Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464) First ruler of the Medici political dynasty

Attributed to Cosimo de' Medici, Duke of Florence, in Apothegms by Francis Bacon, (1624) No. 206

Friendship, Reading

“The Satanist shuns terms such as "hope" and "prayer" as they are indicative of apprehension. If we hope and pray for something to come about, we will not act in a positive way which will make it happen. The Satanist, realizing that anything he gets is of his own doing, takes command of the situation instead of praying to God for it to happen. Positive thinking and positive action add up to results. […] Just as the Satanist does not pray to God for assistance, he does not pray for forgiveness for his wrong doings. The Satanist knows that praying does no good, confessing to another human being, like himself, accomplishes even less - and is, furthermore, degrading.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

God, Hope, Way, Thinking

“It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.”

Vincent de Paul (1581–1660) French priest, founder and saint

As quoted in Homelessness in America : A Forced March to Nowhere (1982), p. 121
Context: You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see and the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.

Love

“Life had taught her to be brave, to be patient, to love, to forgive.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) Canadian fiction writer

Source: Rainbow Valley (1919), Ch. 13

Love, Life, Making love

“Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future.”

Paul Boese

Happy, Funny, Relationship, Past

“My child, let your life come into the world of darkness
like a spark of light, without flicker and pure,
and thank them in silence. You know,
my child, they are cruel in their greed and envy,
their words are disguised knives thirsting for blood.
But do not be afraid, my child, go and stand in their hearts,
and let your gentle eyes fall on them like the forgiving serenity of the night.
My child, let them see your face and so they know it
meaning of all things, let them love and love one another.
Go, at sunrise, open and lift up your heart like a blooming flower,
and at sunset, bend your head and silently complete the worship of the day.
Remember, my child, gods and demons, ghosts and elves are fragments of one,
built by the hand of the abyss.
So, move on, go to the shore of the vast darkness,
there, is the Great Meeting of Children,
there, the sea gives a smile to the beach,
there, sing the waves facing death.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://dailywisdomwords.com/community-poetry/my-child/

God, Light, Silence, Children

“Real devils are the people who don't want to see God forgive the devil on judgment day.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, People

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

Catherine Ponder (1927) American priest

Relationship, Way, Personality

“If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Men, God, Sleep, Heart

“Forgive me if I stare, I knew you were young, but even then I was expecting someone a little more, well, more.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

“All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Sir Robert Chiltern, Act II
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)

Love

“To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius.”

Joyce Cary (1888–1957) Irish writer

Wisdom, Forgetting

“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“There was purification in punishment. Not 'Forgive us our sins,' but 'Smite us for our iniquities' should be the prayer of a man to a most just God.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

God

“First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one's enemies without prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one's enemies without prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up with some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.

Love, Evil, Hurt, Personality

“I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Page 28
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)
Source: Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis

Love, Life, God, Truth

“The chief danger of the 20th century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

William Booth (1829–1912) British Methodist preacher

Variant: I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be.... religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.

God, Religion, Hell, Christ

“To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on Galatians

God, Peace, Heart

“Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering--remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Chance, Parting, Forgetting

“Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity. Love like there's no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Every Day Deserves a Chance: Wake Up to the Gift of 24 Hours

Love

“J. M. W. Turner's Poem dedicated to Ivan Aivazovsky (1842)

Like a curtain slowly drawn
It stops suddenly half open,
Or, like grief itself, filled with gentle hope,
It becomes lighter in the shore-less dark,
Thus the moon barely wanes
Winding her way above the storm-tossed sea.
Stand upon this hill and behold endlessly
This scene of a formidable sea,
And it will seem to thee a waking dream.
That secret mind flowing in thee
Which even the day cannot scatter,
The serenity of thinking and the beating of the heart
Will enchain thee in this vision;
This golden-silver moon
Standing lonely over the sea,
All curtain the grief of even the hopeless.
And it appears that through the tempest
Moves a light caressing wind,
While the sea swells up with a roar,
Sometimes, like a battlefield it looks to me
The tempestuous sea,
Where the moon itself is a brilliant golden crown
Of a great king.
But even that moon is always beneath thee
Oh Master most high,
Oh forgive thou me
If even this master was frightened for a moment
Oh, noble moment, by art betrayed…
And how may one not delight in thee,
Oh thou young boy, but forgive thou me,
If I shall bend my white head
Before thy art divine
Thy bliss-wrought genius…”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Source: J.M.W. Turner

Secret, Dreams, Hope, Art

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

Oscar Wilde book The Canterville Ghost

Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887)

Life, Death, Lie, Peace

“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde

Deep

“Oh! Women can never forgive me. They hate me, they can feel that I ‘m disarming them. I show them without their coquetry, in the states of animals cleaning themselves… …I'm sure of it; they see me as the enemy. Fortunately, since if they did like me, that would be the end of me.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

In Degas by Himself, Drawings, Paintings, Writings, ed. Richard Kendall 2000, p. 299
quotes, undated

Women, Hate, Feeling, Animals

“On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scoured by any white-light religion.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

As quoted in the Introduction by Burton H. Wolfe
The Satanic Bible (1969)

Men, God, Children, Religion

“I have begun to see that even my father's harshness was a kind of love. An imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless. He pushed me because he loved me, because he wanted no man to ever look down at his offspring. Now with time, rather than bitterness I feel blessing.… My initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

"Heal the Kids" speech at the Oxford Union (2001)

Love, Way, Feeling, Time

“Father, forgive them,' said Jesus, 'for they know not what they do' -- People of good sense whoever you may be, I will add, do not listen to them, for they know not what they say.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter XII: The Terrible Secret
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

People, Sense

“Yes, your father and Bartolo
They have fallen
And yesterday they fought and fell
But in the quest for joy and freedom
And in the struggle of this life you'll find
That there is love and sometimes more
Yes, in the struggle you will find
That you can love and be loved also

Forgive me all who are my friends
I am with you
I beg of you, do not cry”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

"The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, Part Three"
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

Love, Life, Freedom, Joy

“Man forgets. God forgives. Man forgets God's Truth. God forgives man's ignorance.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

Songs of the Soul (1971)

God, Truth, Forgetting

“For it seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don't really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don't regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. So you tolerate a conventional duel, just as you tolerate a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn't anything to be forgiven.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Secret of Father Brown

The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)
Source: The Secret of Father Brown (1927) The Chief Mourner of Marne

Thinking

“A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

Life, God, Children, People

“A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her,” he said, “but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 41, p. 142

“What was seen can never be unseen, and I will never forget it, nor will I forgive it.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 18, Forgiveness

Forgetting

“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably … And never regret anything that made you smile.”

Ruslana Koršunova (1987–2008) fashion model

"Model's Web rants pined for love" in Daily News (New York, 29 June 2009) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/06/28/2008-06-28_models_web_rants_pined_for_love.html

Love, Life, Smile, Kiss

“Good, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Dedication to La Saisiaz.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Forgetting

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

This is a variant or paraphrase of The Paradoxical Commandments, by Kent M. Keith, student activist, first composed in 1968 as part of a booklet for student leaders, which had hung on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, India, and have sometimes become misattributed to her. The version posted at his site http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com begins: <br class="br">Misattributed

God, Cheating, People, Self-confidence

“If someone makes a mistake and you still want them in your life, then forgive them.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1970

Life, Making love

“Confession cleans the sinner's soul, it doesn't help the victim. Our whole church is in need of forgiveness. Where is our humility? Sin is a wound, not a stain. It needs to be treated, healed. Forgiveness is not enough.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Soul, Help

“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

For Men, Love, Women

“Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Paul to the corpse of a French man he has just killed, Ch. 9
Source: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Context: I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony — Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?

Death, Fear