forgiveness quotes

Emily Dickinson: 

All but Death, can be Adjusted—
Dynasties repaired—
Systems—settled in their Sockets—
Citadels—dissolved—

Wastes of Lives—resown with Colors
By Succeeding Springs—
Death—unto itself—Exception—
Is exempt from Change—

Eric Hoffer: 

The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

Henry Ward Beecher: 

Repentance is another name for aspiration.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: 

In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart.

Jessamyn West: 

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

John F. Kennedy: 

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

Lord Chesterfield: 

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: 

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. 
from The Scarlet Letter


Reinhold Niebuhr: 

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

Robert Frost: 

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee 
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me

Sidney and Suzanne Simon: 

Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds. It is rediscovering the strengths we always had and relocating our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves.

Sir Francis Bacon: 

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

Voltaire: 

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

William Blake: 

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend