Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Forgive

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

"When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others, I can see them as teachers of forgiveness in my life, reminding me that I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge." - Gerald G. Jampolsky

"When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear.... When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all" - Gerald G. Jampolsky

"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, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson

"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." - Greta Woodrew, Pseud. for Greta Andron Smolowe

"He who would not forgive must judge." - Helen Schucman, born Helen Cohn

"We have learned, maybe most importantly of all, to cherish the company of those who can make us laugh, who can forgive us our shortcomings, who can restore to us or evoke in us a feeling of purpose in the face of absurdity." - Jane Howard, fully Elizabeth Jane Howard

"Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings. " - Jean de La Bruyère

"We never forgive those who make us blush." -

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

"To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind." - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

"Your subconscious never sleeps. It is always on the job. It controls all your vital functions. Forgive yourself and everyone else before you go to sleep, and healing will take place much more rapidly." - Joseph Murphy

"It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too." - Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek

"To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius." - Joyce Cary

"We never forgive those who make us blush." - Jean-François de La Harpe

"Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control... to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare" - Lance Morrow

"Strength of character means the ability to overcome resentment against others, to hide hurt feelings, and to forgive quickly." - Lawrence G. Lovasik

"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven." - Edward Herbert, aka Lord Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Chirbury or Cherbury

"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." - Edward Herbert, aka Lord Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Chirbury or Cherbury

"We may not know how to forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing practice." - Louise L. Hay

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend." - Madame Deluzy, Luzy Dorothee

"Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget." - Maria Edgeworth

"Parents forgive their children least readily for the faults they themselves instilled in them." - Maria Von Ebner-Eschenbach, or Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachová, Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach

"Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.”" - Mary McCarthy

"If today were your last, would you do what you’re doing? Or would you love more, give more, forgive more? Then do so! Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity. Love like there’s no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again. " - Max Lucado

"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson

"Forgiveness is the best charity. (It is easy to give the poor money and goods when one has plenty, but to forgive is hard; but it is the best thing if one can do it.)" - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

"Supremacy over others will never cause a man to find a change in himself; the greater his conquests the stronger is his confirmation of what his mind tells him—that there is no God other than his own power. And he remains separated from God, the Absolute Power. But when the same mind tells him that there is something which may be called God, and, further, when it prompts him to search for God that he may see Him face to face, he begins to forget himself and to forgive others for whatever he has suffered from them. And when he has forgiven everyone and has completely forgotten himself, he finds that God has forgiven him everything, and he remembers Who, in reality, he is." - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

"You, my Eternal Friend, witness now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me…May no one be punished because of me. May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me. Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others. Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes. Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harm. Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others, and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way. Let me forgive others, let me forgive myself, but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others. I seek peace, let me BE peace. I seek justice, let me be just. I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind. I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have. I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have. I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me. I seek a world of love, let me be loving beyond all reason, beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is “normal,” beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little. And let me be open and sensitive to all the love that is already coming to me, the love of people I know, the love that is part of the human condition, the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language, music, recipes, technology, literature, religions, agriculture, and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us. Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more explicit way. Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me. And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector. Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me so that I may fully engage in the work of Tikkun – the healing and transformation of the world social and economic order, the planet, and myself." - Michael Lerner

"Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don't wait." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom

"Those who are patient in adversity and forgive wrongs are the doers of excellence." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

"To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others. " - Morrie Schwartz, fully Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz

"We must be willing to forgive without limit even as God forgives; otherwise we cannot be forgiven." - Nels F. S. Ferré, fully Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferré

"I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try." - Nikki Giovanni, fully Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni

"To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite. To forgive wrongs darker than death or night. To defy power which seems omnipotent. To love and live to hope till hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates. Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent. " - Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL

"Life attracts life… Life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it… Life does not play with marked cards. Winning or losing is part of it… Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once… Life is a constant risk, and anyone who forgets this will be unprepared for the challenges that fate may have in store… Life is a game that is spinning faster to dizziness; life is a skydiving game; it gives us the opportunity, we flying and soaring up again; life is a hiking trip; it wants to climb to the pinnacle of your best and feeling angry, upset when you do not control it… Life is an act of faith… Life is falling down 7 times and getting up 8… Life is like a garden, you reap what you sow… Life is like cooking: before choosing what you love, try everything… Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by… Life is one long training session, in preparation for what will come. Life and death lose their meaning, there are only challenges to be met with joy and overcome with tranquility… Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly… Life is too short to waste time complaining… Life is the moment we're living right now… Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other… Life without cause is a life without effect. " - Paulo Coelho

"Forgetting is painful… Forgive but do not forget, or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson… Fortunate are those who take the first steps… Facing the difficulties, I can choose either to be a poor victim or a great adventurer… Fairy tales had been her first experience of the magical universe, and more than once she had wondered why people ended up distancing themselves from that world, knowing the immense joy that childhood had brought to their lives." - Paulo Coelho

"We've replaced nearly all our emotions with fear… But I like all the others, I see this world as I would like to be, not as they really are… But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering… But now I knew that true love was above all that and that it would be better to die than to fail to love… The greatest wisdom could be blinded by the glare of vanity… We see the evil in others because we know the evil in ourselves. We never forgive those who wound us because we believe that we would never be forgiven. We say the painful truth to others because we want to hide it from ourselves." - Paulo Coelho

"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night; To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change nor falter nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!" - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The truly great man is as apt to forgive as his power is able to revenge." -

"There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. " - Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

"Those who easily forgive invite offenses." - Pierre Cornielle

"The mark of Cain is stamped upon our foreheads. Across the centuries, our brother Abel was slain in blood which we drew, and shed tears we caused by forgetting Thy love. Forgive us, Lord, for the curse we falsely attributed to their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying Thee a second time in their flesh. For we knew not what we did." - Pope John XXIII, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli NULL

"In the bible it says you have to forgive seventy times seven. I want you all to know, I'm keeping a chart. " - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody." - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt

"To my disappointment I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody." - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt

"When we forgive someone, the knots are untied and the past is released." - Reshad Feild, born Richard Timothy Feild