Quotes About Guilt

Small Mabel whimpered all night long, For calling herself the cause. Her oak-eyed mother did no thing But change the bloody gauze.

A veces la culpa quiere que aquel a quien se castiga decida su propia condena. Y no es infrecuente que el amor herido quiera ser herido de más.

We are criminals and we do not know how to express or prove that we are criminals. The problem is that if, as criminals, we were recognized as such, we would have to pay for the crime. Yet if we paid, the crime would disappear and our debt would be wiped out. We must keep our crime in order to keep our crime safe, to avoid the terrible fate of being forgiven.

a man killed committing a felony--and bombing and arson ought to qualify for that--is simply bought and paid for; his blood is on nobody's head but his own.

Sometimes you may care so much about the person who has hurt you, or be so unable to be angry with them, that you rationalize their hurtful acts by finding some basis in your own actions for their hurtful behavior; you then feel guilty rather than angry. Put in other words, you become angry with yourself rather than with the one who hurt you.

It's hard when you are wrongfully accused, but it's worse when the people accusing you are the guilty ones.

Shame ain't a spontaneous emotion; shame is an induced emotion.

Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity.

Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done those things? His conscience sighed in answer. Yes, he had done them, secretly, filthily, time after time, and, hardened in sinful impenitence, he had dared to wear the mask of holinesss before the tabernacle itself while his soul within was a living mass of corruption.

He had sinned mortally not once but many times and he knew that, while he stood in danger of eternal damnation for the first sin alone, by every succeeding sin he multiplied his guilt and his punishment. His days and works and thoughts could make no atonement for him, the fountains of sanctifying grace having ceased to refresh his soul.

Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be wrongfully condemned.

That's the maxim of the law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be wrongfully condemned.

I wasn't a criminal, but I was genuinely insane. My greatest enemy is sleep. I see the men and boys I killed many years ago in a foreign land, and I'm filled with sorrow. Have you had those experiences, sir? Please tell me that is indeed the case and that you wish to get them out of your life. Can you do that for me, sir?

People who commit suicide in a dramatic fashion often have an agenda and are involved in a fantasy that leads to their death. They're filled with rage and seek revenge against those who have hurt them. They slash their wrists or jump from buildings or fire bullets into their brain. In their fantasy, they witness the discovery of their body by people they hate. In that way, they leave behind a legacy of guilt and sorrow.

I didn't intend to hurt her. But when you deal with those who have chosen to inflict great harm on themselves and their loved ones on a daily basis, whatever you say to them about the reality of their lives will either prove inadequate or offend them deeply, and leave you with feelings of guilt and depression. It's not unlike walking through cobweb.

When she got home, Bert came out to meet her, and took her into the den, where Letty was trying to quiet Veda. Letty went back to the kitchen, and Veda broke into loud sobs. Over and over, she kept saying: "I owed her a nickel! Oh, Mother, I cheated her out of it, and I meant to pay it back, but—I owed her a nickel!

why does doing the right thing feel so bad?

courage abounds where guilt and rage run free.

I was living a complete lie. But unfortunately, guilt doesn't make you stop.

Unfortunately, of course, guilt is an artifact of agricultural-age religion and is designed specifically to prevent humans from thinking and operating on a collective level.

I don't have any gnawing guilt over contributing to any unhappiness suffered by my husbands. They were as much to blame as I was.

The old Greeks dwelt on the tendency of human affairs to drift downwards irresistibly to unhappiness. Guilt - that is, untoward and often involuntary actions - pulls generation after generation heavily as lead down, down, down.

I'm not promoting anything totally unhealthy because I'm not unhealthy. But I am promoting an ideal that's not attainable, and for that I have to feel guilty. I have to assume some blame for that.

A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest.