Great Throughts Treasury

"They who forgive most, shall be most forgiven." - Josia Bailey, fully Josiah William Bailey

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." - William Blake

"He who cannot forgive himself with regard to you will never forgive you." - F. H. Bradley, fully Frances Herbert "F.H." Bradley

"Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin

"Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin

"We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends." - Cosmus, Duke of Florence, aka Cosimo di Gherardini the Great NULL

"Forgiveness means giving up, letting go. It has nothing to do with condoning behavior. It's just letting the whole thing go. 'I forgive you for not being the way I want you to be. I forgive you and set you free.' (Affirmation sets you free.)" - Louise L. Hay

"Forgiveness is the most necessary and proper work of every man; for, though, when I do not a just thing, or a charitable, or a wise, another man may do it for me, yet no man can forgive my enemy but myself." -

"The place where forgiveness begins is a troubled, anxious heart. You will never be able to forgive anybody until you yourself are deeply disturbed. To be able to forgive we must come down from the citadel of pride, from the stronghold of hate and anger, from the high place where all emotions that issue from one's sense of being wronged shout only for vengeance and retaliation." - John Heuss

"To forgive sin is not an act of injustice, though the punishment have been threatened. Even amongst men, though the promise of good bind the promiser; yet threats, that is to say, promises of evil, bind them not; much less shall they bind God, who is infinitely more merciful than men." - Thomas Hobbes

"Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; patience, governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues the hand, tramples upon temptation, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom; patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the state, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age." - George Horne

"Nature will not forgive those who fail to fulfill the law of their being. The law of human beings is wisdom and goodness, not limited acquisition." - Robert Hutchins, fully Robert Maynard Hutchins

"How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself." - Publius Syrus

"To conquer is honorable, to oppress bitter, to forgive beautiful." - Publius Syrus

"Hath any wronged thee? Be bravely revenged. Slight it, and the work is begun; forgive it, and it is finished. He is below himself that is not above any injury." - Francis Quarles

"It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his estimations, and yours too." -

"To be able to forget and forgive is the prerogative of noble souls." - Wilhelm Stekel

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -

"Let us be very gentle with our neighbors’ failings, and forgive our friends their debts as we hope ourselves to be forgiven." - William Makepeace Thackeray

"It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that is has not lowered us but revealed our true level." - Simone Weil

"To be happy: Live one day at a time. Take advantage of what you already have. Have a sense of humor. Set some priorities. Make a change and stick to it. Forgive and forget. Count your blessings." -

"However fastidious we may be in love, we forgive more faults in love than in friendship." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Out of the ashes of misanthropy benevolence rises again; we find many virtues where we had imagined all was vice, many acts of disinterested friendship where we had fancied all was calculation and fraud - and so gradually from the two extremes we pass to the proper medium; and, feeling that no human being is wholly good or wholly base, we learn that true knowledge of mankind which induces us to expect little and forgive much. The world cures alike the optimist and the misanthrope." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend." -

"May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done to us? That we may forgive it." -

"Children are very nice observers, and they will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children forgive nothing in them but everything in themselves." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

"A man must learn to forgive himself." - Arthur Davison Ficke, sometimes published under the pen name of "Anne Knish"

"God will forgive me. That's his business." - Heinrich Heine

"He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass; for every man has the need to be forgiven." -

"The only reason I always try to meet and know the parents is because it helps me to forgive their children." - Louis Johannot

"To be happy is easy enough if we give ourselves, forgive others, and live with thanksgiving. No self-centered person, no ungrateful soul can ever be happy, much less make anyone else happy. Life is giving, not getting." - Joseph Fort Newton

"We forgive so long as we love." -

"We often forgive those who bore us, but cannot forgive those we bore." -

"Everybody is a bit right; nobody is completely right or completely wrong. The prevalence of this point of view among all decent people nearly always has the same dreadful result for, according to their doctrine, every time a contemporary is quite right, he must be crucified. They can never forgive him because he denies their dogma; worst still, he reveals that they hold another dogma which they conceal." - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

"Children begin by loving their parents: after a time they judge them: rarely, if ever, do they forgive them." -

"One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything every night before you go to bed." -

"Men never forgive those in whom there is nothing to pardon." -

"Learning to forgive is much more useful than merely picking up a stone and throwing it at the object of one’s anger, the more so when the provocation is extreme. For it is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others." -

"The only sin which people never forgive in each other is difference of opinion." - Lydian Emerson, also Lidian Emerson, born Lydia Jackson

"How does time become holy? It becomes holy when a part of it is given to others, when we share and care and listen. Time is sanctified when we use it – to forgive and ask forgiveness; to remember things too long forgotten and to forget things too long remembered; to reclaim sacred things too casually abandoned and to abandon shabby things too highly cherished; to remember that life’s most crucial question is – how are we using time?" - Sidney Greenberg

"Nobody will be able to forgive me but myself." - Ding Ling, pseudonym of Jiǎng Bīngzhī, aka Bīn Zhǐ

"To be happy is easy enough if we give ourselves , forgive others, and live with thanksgiving. No self-centered person, no ungrateful soul can ever be happy, much less make anyone else happy. Life is giving, not getting." - Joseph Fort Newton

"To err is human, to forgive divine." - Alexander Pope

"The stupid neither forgive not forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive, but they do not forget." -

"To err is human; to forgive, infrequent." -

"Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don’t want the other person to forget that we forgave." - Ivern Ball

"Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury." -

"Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury." -

"No eternal reward can forgive us now for wasting the dawn." - Jim Morrison

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