“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

Buddy Wakefield (1974) American poet

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it's accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

“Instead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhibited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

“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

“Anybody who has had experience of poetesses knows that they may forgive a punch on the jaw, but never a suggestion that they would be wiser to give up versifying.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”

Ted Chiang The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

“There is hope in forgiveness”

John Piper (1946) American writer