Forgiveness

The ability to forgive is one of man's greatest achievements. (Bryant H. McGill)

Forgive. It doesn't erase their crime but why should you do the time. Let go of resentment. (Dodinsky)

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. (Rita Mae Brown)

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. (Paul Boese)

Forgiveness means letting go of the past. (Gerald Jampolsky)

Without forgiveness, there's no future. (Desmond Tutu)

When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future. (Bernard Meltzer)

It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission. (Grace Hopper)

It's easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. (William Blake)

Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right. (J.K. Rowling)

Forgiveness

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much. (George Eliot)

A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable. (Robert Fripp)

Pray you now, forget and forgive. (William Shakespeare)

One thing you will probably remember well is any time you forgive and forget. (Franklin P. Jones)

You're supposed to remember, and still forgive. (Delta Burke)

Keep all your personalities out of your work. Forget and forgive. (Ford Frick)

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. (Thomas S. Szasz)

Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don't want the other person to forget that we forgave. (Ivern Ball)

The things two people do to each other they remember. If they stay together, it's not because they forget; it's because they forgive. (Demi Moore)

To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget. (Mason Cooley)

Forgiveness

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world. (Marianne Williamson)

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. (Jean Paul Richter)

To be social is to be forgiving. (Robert Frost)

Forgiveness is the final form of love. (Reinhold Niebuhr)

There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love. (Bryant H. McGill)

He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

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

When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. (Catherine Ponder)

What we forgive too freely doesn't stay forgiven. (Mignon McLaughlin)

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing. (George Bernard Shaw)

Forgiveness

If you haven't forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others. (Dolores Huerta)

You can forgive yourself a great deal. (Eddie Albert)

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive. (Alan Paton)

We achieve inner health only through forgiveness - the forgiveness not only of others but also of ourselves. (Joshua Loth Liebman)

Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself. (Harriet Nelson)

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. (Suzanne Somers)

To understand is to forgive, even oneself. (Alexander Chase)

Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself. (Harriet Nelson)

Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on. (Les Brown)

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were. (Cherie Carter-Scott)

Forgiveness

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness. (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.)

God forgives us... who am I not to forgive? (Alan Paton)

Forgiveness is God's command. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature. (Julia Ward Howe)

God will forgive me. It's his job. (Heinrich Heine)

God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness. (Henry Ward Beecher)

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again. (Saint Augustine)

I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself. (Charles Simeon)

I feel like God has forgiven me of so much, that I will forgive everyone who has hurt us. (Jim Bakker)

Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. (Garrison Keillor)

Forgiveness

True forgiveness is not an action after the fact, it is an attitude with which you enter each moment. (David Ridge)

Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge. (Isaac Friedmann)

Forgiveness is the oil of relationships. (Josh McDowell)

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

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. (Hannah Moore)

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. (Indira Gandhi)

Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it. (Mason Cooley)

Forgiveness is not an emotion, it's a decision. (Randall Worley)

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. (Mark Twain)

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life. (George MacDonald)

Forgiveness

How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself. (Publilius Syrus)

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. (Mohandas K. Gandhi)

Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love. (Mohandas K. Gandhi)

You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest. (Mahondas K. Gandhi)

To understand everything is to forgive everything. (Buddha)

Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace. (Leo Tolstoy)

Forgiveness is of high value, yet it costs nothing. (Anonymous)

Men forget but never forgive. Women forgive but never forget. (Anonymous)

Rejection doesn't hurt, expectation does. Lying doesn't kill, denial does. Forgetting doesn't heal, forgiveness does. (Anonymous)

You have to forgive to forget, and forget to feel again. (Anonymous)

Lewis Benedictus Smedes: Forgiveness

       Lewis Benedictus Smedes (1921–2002) was a renowned Christian author, ethicist, and theologian in the Reformed tradition. He was a professor of theology and ethics for twenty-five years at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the award-winning author of fifteen books, including Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve. In this books, he shows that it is possible to heal our pain and find room in our hearts to forgive. Breaking down the process of healing into four stages and offering stories of real people's experience throughout, this wise book provides hope and solace for all who long for the peace that comes with forgiveness.

Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other.

None of us wants to admit that we hate someone...When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate.

You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.

...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving.

You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything... We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run.

The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have... they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word.

We forgive freely or we do not really forgive at all.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.

Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness.