quotations about forgiveness
When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines upon you.
JON KRAKAUER
Into the Wild
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
JESUS
Luke 6:37
Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times (or seventy times seven)."
JESUS
Matthew 18:21
It is right for him who asks forgiveness for his offenses to grant it to others.
HORACE
Satires
The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. It is one of the great virtues to which we all should aspire. Imagine a world filled with individuals willing both to apologize and to accept an apology. Is there any problem that could not be solved among people who possessed the humility and largeness of spirit and soul to do either -- or both -- when needed?
GORDON B. HINCKLEY
Standing for Something
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1957
Forgiveness is healing ... especially forgiving yourself.
ALYSON NOËL
Evermore
People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
JESUS
Luke 11:4
Willingness to forgive frees the soul to laugh and cry and be The Beloved.
GITA BELLIN
The Flourishing Mind
I love you and I forgive you. I am like you and you are like me. I love all people. I love the world. I love creating. Everything in our life should be based on love.
RAY BRADBURY
"Sci-fi Legend Ray Bradbury on God, Monsters and Angels", CNN: Living, August 2, 2010
But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
He who forgives readily only invites offense.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
Cinna
Forgiveness is like the gentle zephyrs wafting the dew of heaven over field, farm and woodland, rendering the landscape beautiful to behold.
C.L.W.
"Forgiveness", The Juvenile Instructor, Volume 25
Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. Like all of life's important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives.
FRED ROGERS
The World According to Mister Rogers
Forgotten is forgiven.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Crack-Up
There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world--a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Forgiveness is like catching a little fish. You reel it in, and you make a decision to keep it or let it go. With the little ones, you take the hook out of its mouth and throw it back in. The scar from the hook doesn't go away and the fish ought to remember not to repeat the mistake. But the fish is back in the creek and free to do whatever fish do. The purpose of forgiveness is freedom, like being thrown back into the creek.
DAVID RYDER
The Hound of Tooty River
When our anger turns to bitterness it becomes like a weed in the garden of our heart. If we pull the weeds, our garden can stay healthy and alive. But if we allow bitter weeds to grow, eventually our garden becomes ugly and weeds choke the life out of the vegetables in our garden. Forgiveness is like pulling out the weeds.
MICHAEL E. MCCULLOUGH
To Forgive Is Human: How to Put Your Past in the Past
For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series