Quotes for the Journey: Forgiveness One forgives to the degree that one loves. Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Lovingkindness depends on forgiveness.  It definitely works reciprocally.  When I am able to forgive myself--which is not always easy--I am kinder to everyone.  Including myself.       -Sylvia Boorstein     Pardon one another so that later on you will not remember the injury.  The recollection of an injury is in itself wrong.  It adds to our anger, nurtures our sin, and hates what is good.  It is a rusty arrow and poison for the soul.        -Francis of Paola     The Toltec tradition tells us that we surrender a portion of our life force when we dwell on any unhealed wounding event from our past.  The unprocessed emotions surrounding these events burden us and weigh heavily on our hearts.  They must be dealt with if we want access to all of our vitality.  Ultimately, what we will find is that forgiveness is the key to reclaiming all the life force locked in past hurt.       -Debbie Ford     Today I forgive all those who have ever offended me.  I give my love to all thirsty hearts, both to those who love me and those who do not love me.       -Paramahansa Yogananda     Forgiveness means letting go of a hurtful situation and moving on with your own happiness.       -Amanda Ford      Let us be merciful in our mental judgments of our brothers and sisters, for, in truth, we are all one, and the more deeply they seem to err, the more urgent is the need for us to help them with the right thought, and so make it easier for them to get free.       -Emmet Fox

I think so many of us are too hard on ourselves for what we didn’t accomplish or what we should have done.  The first step is to forgive yourself for all the things you didn’t do that you should have and all the things that you did do that you shouldn’t have.  Get rid of the guilt.  Negative feelings don’t do you much good.  The way to deal with them is to forgive yourself and forgive others. . . .     Forgiveness helps you come to terms with the past.  I've learned how to forgive myself, and this has helped me no longer feel deep regrets or sadness about my past.       -Morrie Schwartz

We don't have choices about who our parents are and how they treated us, but we have a choice about whether we forgive our parents and heal ourselves.       -Bernie Siegel

If you haven't forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others? Dolores Huerta Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom. Hannah Arendt

Many promising reconciliations have broken down because while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven.       -Charles William

There's no point in burying a hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site.       -Sydney Harris

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.  Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.  Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.  No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.  Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.        -Reinhold Niebuhr

How unhappy are they who cannot forgive themselves.        -Publilius Syrus

The baby girl, feeling his attention shift away from her, reached forward and grabbed his nose.  Gently he freed himself and continued the sermon.  After a few minutes, she took his tie and put it in her mouth.  The entire congregation chuckled.  The rabbi rescued his tie and smiled at his child.  She put her tiny arms around his neck.  Looking at us over the top of her head, he said, "Think about it.  Is there anything she can do that you could not forgive her for?"  Throughout the room people began to nod in recognition, thinking perhaps of their own children and grandchildren.  Just then, she reached up and grabbed his eyeglasses.  Everyone laughed out loud. Retrieving his eyeglasses and settling them on his nose, the rabbi laughed as well.  Still smiling, he waited for silence.  When it came, he asked, "And when does that stop?  When does it get hard to forgive?  At three?  At seven?  At fourteen?  At thirty-five?  How old does someone have to be before you forget that everyone is a child of God?" Back then, God's forgiveness was something easily understandable to me, but personally I found forgiveness difficult.  I had thought of it as a lowering of standards rather than a family relationship. -Rachel Naomi Remen

God heals through forgiveness and asks that we do likewise. Attack is an easier response than forgiveness, and that is why we are so tempted to give into it. Throughout our lives we have seen more anger than examples of true forgiveness.  Forgiveness does not mean that we suppress anger; forgiveness means that we have asked for a miracle:  the ability to see through mistakes that someone has made to the truth that lies in all of our hearts. . . .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. Attack thoughts towards others are attack thoughts towards ourselves. The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.        -Marianne Williamson

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath:  it is twice blest; It blesseth those that give, and those that take. William Shakespeare

Forgiveness is at the heart of a healthy and happy life.  Forgiveness protects relationships.  It also protects the person who does the forgiving. Remember the story that psychiatrist and author Robert Coles tells about Ruby, the little girl who integrated a Southern elementary school. Every day the federal marshals had to escort Ruby through a mob of adults who spat at her and called her hateful names.  Remarkably, the five-year-old girl did not seem to be emotionally damaged by the ordeal, a fact that puzzled Cole until he discovered that Ruby prayed every day asking God to forgive her persecutors . . . . Forgiveness is a method for giving love.  It is a way of saying, "I am going to let go of the wrong you did; I am not going to be bitter and I am going to go on loving you anyway."       -Bernie Siegel

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.        -Peter Ustinov

A Poison Tree I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it with fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft, deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine. And into my garden stole, When the night had veiled the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree. William Blake

Forgiveness is the perfume the trampled flower casts back  on the foot that crushed it.       -Author Unknown

The practice of forgiveness can play an important role in your relationships with others.  Forgiveness will enable you to correct distortions in your relationships and to improve the quality, intensity, and meaningfulness of relationships.  It means letting go of past resentments toward others so that you can experience them in the present.  Even if you do not "feel" like forgiving someone, forgiving them will release you from the hold of the past and allow you to experience the world in a new way.  To forgive is to step outside the vicious circle of interpretation, where concepts from the past dominate experience, and to begin to live in terms of a larger, more worthy purpose.  Forgiveness eliminates fear and anxiety, weakness and vulnerability.       -Ari Kiev

To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love.  In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.       -Robert Muller

Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.        -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dost thou wish to receive mercy?  Show mercy to thy neighbor.        -St. John Chrysostom

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.        -Dag Hammarskjold

Love truth, but pardon error. Voltaire To err is human, to forgive, divine. Alexander Pope

Forgiveness enables you to bury your grudge in the icy earth and put the past behind you.  You flush resentment away by being the first to forgive.  Forgiveness fashions your future.  It is a brave and brash thing to do.  The gutsiest decision you can make.  As you forgive others, winter will soon make way for springtime as fresh joy pushes up through the soil of your heart.    Forgiveness is a stunning principal, your ticket out of hate and fear and chaos.  I know what regret feels like; I’ve earned my credentials.  But I also know what forgiveness feels like, because God has so graciously forgiven me.  Forgiveness frees you of the past so you can make good choices today.       -Barbara Johnson

Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all.       -Thomas a Kempis

I believe that the most important thing to consider when thinking about forgiveness is the effect that it has on ourselves.  Forgiveness isn't always about the person being forgiven; often, that person will have asked forgiveness and will be very grateful when we do forgive, but probably more often we need to forgive for our own sakes.  I've carried around anger and resentment for a while, and I've done so quite often.  But the thing that always took it away was the realization--usually later rather than sooner--that my anger wasn't affecting the object of my anger at all, but it was affecting me a great deal, in a very negative way.  I wasn't sleeping as I could have been, I wasn't able to focus on the task at hand as well as I could have, I wasn't able to relate to other people effectively.  I have to admit, I still get angry and I don't always forgive as I should, but I try--I don't want that negative baggage to carry around with me.  I want my view of the world to be a view filled with wonder and awe, and carrying a grudge taints that view; I'm the one who suffers from my own inability to forgive--just as I'm the only one who can save myself from that suffering by putting things behind me where they belong.       -Tom Walsh

Where there is forgiveness, there is God himself.       -from the Adi Granth  (sacred Sikh text)

To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love.       -Walter Lippmann

The process of making sense of our wounds is a very personal one.  But a common theme in wound healing is the universal need to forgive.  If we don't forgive ourselves for our mistakes, and others for the wounds they have inflicted upon us, we end up crippled with guilt.  And the soul cannot grow under a blanket of guilt, because guilt is isolating, while growth is a gradual process of reconnection to our selves, to other people, and to a larger whole.        -Joan  Borysenko

If we can forgive everyone, regardless of what he or she may have done, we nourish the soul and allow our whole being to feel good.  To hold a grudge against anyone is like carrying the devil on your shoulders.  It is our willingness to forgive and forget that casts away such a burden and brings light into our hearts, freeing us from many ill feelings against our fellow human beings.       -Sydney Banks

The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.       -Mohandas Gandhi

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.        -Jessamyn West

When I feel betrayed by someone, instead of sulking, clinging to my resentment and playing the role of victim, I am challenged to strengthen my soul through forgiveness.  By forgiving the person who hurt me, I strengthen my soul. . . . each time we are called upon to forgive, we nourish our souls and learn more about who we are and what we have to share in this world. This is also an example of unconditional love.       -John Gray

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.       -Buddha

Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.        -Alcoholics Anonymous

To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils; but to prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine.        -Isaac Watts

Forgiveness is an act of love.  As I forgive, I release negative energy that may manifest as resentment or anger.  I open the way for something positive to happen.  If I feel wronged or annoyed, I release the impulse to judge.  The lines of communication remain open, and understanding flows freely.  Relationships with family, friends and colleagues flourish when I act with compassion and easily forgive.  I relate to others in harmonious ways.  I exercise the same forgiving attitude toward myself.  If I have erred, I learn from it and move on.  I draw from the reservoir of God's love within me to give and receive forgiveness.        -unattributed (the Daily Word)

The moment an individual can accept and forgive him or herself, even a little, is the moment in which he or she becomes to some degree lovable.       -Eugene Kennedy

Those that cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they must pass themselves; for every person has need to be forgiven.        -Thomas Fuller

I come from a background in which anger and resentment were rather normal.  It wasn't that the people in my life liked being angry and resentful--they just hadn't learned how to deal with their feelings in other ways.  Because of this background, though, it took me many years during my young adulthood to unlearn this pattern, to realize that such thoughts were not only negative, but also harmful. One of the most important accomplishments in my life has been to learn how to forgive.  I don't always do so quickly enough to save myself a few miserable days, but I have learned to view people's actions in a much more objective light, taking them much less personally.  Usually I see behavior that affects me negatively as a reflection of bad things that are going on in other people's lives, and this helps me to forgive much more easily.  Did that guy cut me off in traffic?  Maybe he's in a hurry because someone's sick.  Did that person talk about me behind my back?  Well, maybe she's feeling insecure about herself, and she has to knock someone down to make herself feel better. Her words don't change who I am. Being able to see things this way has almost no effect at all on the other people involved in any situation, but it does have a strong effect on me:  I'm able to feel more peaceful, more relaxed, and more able to help others.  I feel that things are okay apart from this one small aspect of my life, and my forgiveness helps me to realize the relative insignificance of this aspect.  I'm not here on this planet to control other people and have them ask for forgiveness when I feel they should do so--the only person's actions and thoughts over which I have any sort of control are my own, and I can forgive if I choose to do so, knowing that doing so helps me. There's a common misconception that forgiving someone implies that the action that's being forgiven was okay, but I always keep in mind that I'm forgiving the person, not the action.  Hurting other people is always wrong, but we all make mistakes and hurt others.  I'm very thankful that some people in life have forgiven me for some of my actions, so why shouldn't i show the same courtesy to others?  Forgiving doesn't make wrong right or take away responsibility-- forgiveness just says it's not up to me to judge, and I'm not going to hold a grudge against you just because you made a mistake. tdw

I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge.         -Gerald Jampolsky

"I can forgive, but I cannot forget" is only another way of saying, "I will not forgive." Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note-- torn in two and burned up so that it never can be shown against one.       -Henry Ward Beecher

Forgiving those who hurt us is the key to personal peace.       -G. Weatherly

Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always make you less than you are.       -Malcolm Forbes

Forgiveness requires more than words.  Words are meaningless unless they are consistent with life actions.  You may say you have forgiven someone, but if you avoid them, grow angry when you are with them, or allow chaos to be part of your relationship, forgiveness is not in your heart.  People read forgiveness in attitudes and responses.  Through your actions, you can tell others you have accepted God's love and forgiven the hurts of your life.        -Elizabeth B. Brown

The vital importance of forgiveness  may not be obvious at first sight, but you may be sure that it is not by chance that every great spiritual teacher from Jesus Christ downward has insisted so strongly upon it.  You must forgive injuries, not just in words, or as a matter of form, but in your heart -- and that is the long and the short of it.  You do this, not for the other person's sake, but for your own sake.  Resentment, condemnation, anger, desire to see someone punished are things that rot your soul.  Such things fasten your troubles to you with rivets.  They fetter you to many other problems that actually have nothing to do with the original grievances themselves.        -Emmet Fox

Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.       -William Arthur Ward

Ruby stepped toward him. "Edward," she said softly. It was the first time she had called him by name. "Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison.  It eats you from inside.  We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade.  And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.      "Forgive, Edward.  Forgive.  Do you remember the lightness you felt when you first arrived in heaven?"      Eddie did.  Where is my pain?      "That's because no one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it."      She touched his hand.      "You need to forgive your father." Mitch Albom from The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The process of forgiveness—indeed, the chief reason for forgiveness—is selfish.  The reason to forgive others is not for their sake.  They are not likely to know that they need to be forgiven.  They’re not likely to remember their offense.  They are likely to say, “You just made it up.”  They may even be dead.  The reason to forgive is for our own sake.  For our own health.  Because beyond that point needed for healing, if we hold on to our anger, we stop growing and our souls begin to shrivel.       -M. Scott Peck

Often, we are harder on ourselves than others are.  If we cannot forgive ourselves, how can we forgive other people?  Everyone's lesson is to forgive ourselves for our mistakes, even those things we feel ashamed about, and learn to accept ourselves for who we are, knowing that we can always gently work on making improvements.  For me, the true experience of inner peace began only once I was able to forgive those around me, my parents, and myself.       -Patrick Wanis

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.       -Oscar Wilde

Know that compassion for others begins with being able to accept and forgive yourself.  As long as you judge others for their imperfections, you will never be able to truly accept and love yourself.       -Susan Santucci

Two friends were walking through the desert.  During some point of the journey they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:  "Today my best friend slapped me in the face." They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath.  The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:  "Today my best friend saved my life." The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone.  Why?" The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away.  But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

Home - About - Links - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - aging - ambition - America anger - anticipation - apathy - appreciation - arrogance - attitude - authenticity - autumn - awareness - awe balance - beauty - being yourself - beliefs - body - brooding - busyness - celebration - challenges - change character - children - choice - Christianity - Christmas - coincidence - commitment - common sense community - comparison - compassion - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence - conformity conscience - contentment - control - courage - covetousness - creativity - crisis - criticism - cruelty - death desire - determination - discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth - education - ego - encouragement enlightenment - enthusiasm - envy - eternity - experience - failure - faith - family - fathers - fault-finding - fear flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - fun - the garden of life - gardening - generosity - gentleness - giving goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greed - grief - growing up - guilt - happiness - hatred - healing - health helpfulness - home - honesty - hope - hospitality - humility - hurry - ideals - idleness - idolatry - ignorance imagination - impatience - individuality - inspiration - integrity - introspection - intuition - jealousy - journey - joy judgment - kindness - knowledge - laughter - law of attraction - laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life listening - loneliness - love - lying - marriage - materialism - meanness - meditation - mindfulness - miracles mistakes - mistrust - money - mothers - mystery - nature - negative attitude - new year - oneness open mindedness - opportunity - optimism - pain - patience - peace - perfectionism - perseverance - perspective pessimism - play - positive thinking - possessions - potential - prayer - prejudice - the present moment - pride principle - prosperity - purpose - reflection - relationships - religion - resentment - respect - responsibility - rest revenge - risk - role models - sadness - safety - the seasons of life - self - self-love - self-pity - self-respect service - shame - silence - simplicity - smiles - solitude - spirit - spring - success - summer - the tapestry of life teachers - Thanksgiving - thoughts - time - today - trust - truth - values - vanity - war - weight - winter - wisdom wonder - work - worry - worship - youth - zen Dale Carnegie - Albert Einstein - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Anne Morrow Lindbergh - Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross Helen Keller - Mother Teresa - Eleanor Roosevelt - Orison Swett Marden - Albert Schweitzer - Aristotle Mohandas Gandhi - Wilferd A. Peterson

Two great Kindle books from livinglifefully.com!  First, the daily meditations from the first year are gathered together in a single volume at just $2.99 for the entire year, and second, almost 4,000 quotes from livingllifefully.com are gathered in one volume for just 99 cents--that's right, for less than one dollar, you can have thousands of quotes that took years to gather on your own PC, Mac, or Kindle, to have with you wherever you are.