I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness and where I’m lacking it in my life. So I’ve decided to learn more about it and see if I can be more focused about applying forgiveness to my daily goings on.
To begin, I’ve gathered some quotes (provided by Brainy Quotes). Of course some will apply to me, and some will not. Hope you can relate a bit as well.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy
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. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi
Oscar Wilde
Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Mark Twain
It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
Maya Angelou
When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.
Bernard Meltzer
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
Dalai Lama
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
Indira Gandhi
Forgotten is forgiven.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it.’
Maya Angelou
He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.
Thomas Fuller
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note – torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
Henry Ward Beecher
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiveness is the final form of love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
To err is human; to forgive, divine.
Alexander Pope
Forgiveness is the economy of the heart… forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
Hannah More
Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.
Marianne Williamson
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde
Not surprisingly I resonate with a lot of these quotes. Now it’s time to practice what they preach.
Neale Donald Walsch says, “Forgo forgiveness in lieu of understanding.” This quote has changed my life. If you understand that no one does anything they believe is inappropriate based on their view of the world, forgiveness becomes unnecessary. I think an issue with forgiveness is that it implies one person is up here and another is down there, being pardoned by the one from above. I believe we developed this pattern of thinking based on religious teachings and how people have been taught to view their relationship with God.
Thank you Michele. I appreciate your sharing this with me.
My take on forgiveness is to definitely let go of the hurt someone has inflicted, but not to forget that that person may inflict pain again. Otherwise, the whole hurting cycle can happen again. I also believe that it is important to let that person know, albeit gently, when they hurt us. A psychologist once instructed me that when someone steps on our toe, we say “OUCH!” Otherwise how does that person know they are inflicting pain? So too, we need to respond by letting someone know they hurt us. This certainly isn’t easy sometimes, but I believe it is part of the challenge involved in forgiveness.
Thanks, Kas. I really appreciate your wisdom.