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Quotes About Guilt

What have I done? If I have killed my beloved lord, I will never forgive myself! And if he lives — neither will he!
~ Andy Jones
I don't believe in guilt, I believe in living on impulse as long as you never intentionally hurt another person, and don't judge people in your life. I think you should live completely free...
~ Angelina Jolie
Back then, I would have begged forgiveness from my friends in the BSC. I would have tried like crazy to balance my time between school, the club, Robert and my family. I would have gone on feeling guilty about my boyfriend at BSC meetings, embarrassed about one set of friends while I was with the other, but I wasn't feeling apologetic now or guilty or ashamed.
~ Ann M. Martin
I don't care what it was. What if that happens tonight? What if the Home Underground collapses on the Lost Boys? What if the nursery set falls over? I don't want to be responsible for killing Kristy.
~ Ann M. Martin
He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue, must regulate his thoughts by those of reason;  he must keep guilt from the recesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and the emotions of desire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden, since they escape the awe of observation, and operate equally in every situation, without the concurrence of external opportunities.
~ Samuel Johnson
Why should the guiltless tremble so, when the guilty can possess their minds in peace?
~ Samuel Richardson
And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Why look'st thou so?'— With my cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
we women always feel guilt, even about things that can't be helped.
~ Sandra Dallas
Aria: I went to Hollis. Because I was looking for...you know. Her. She was teaching an art class, so I ran inside, grabbed a paintbrush, and painted a scarlet A across her chest. You know, like that woman in The Scarlet Letter? It was awesome. She didn't know what hit her. And then I said, 'Now everyone will know what you've done'. Ella: Do you realize that Hester Prynne is supposed to be a sympathetic character?
~ Sara Shepard
There are so many pieces to grief. Sad pieces, angry pieces, guilty pieces, pieces of regret, and pieces that are a certain kind of pain that doesn't even have a word.
~ Sara Zarr
Ethan didn't know anything about the fat girl, the Cootie Twin, the loner and reject. The only person who had ever picked Jennifer Harris was Cameron Quick, and sometimes when I was with Ethan I felt the smallest twinge of guilt, like being with him was a betrayal. The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he'd done for me and what we'd been through together, even if that loyalty was to a ghost.
~ Sara Zarr
And I understood being made to feel guilty for things that weren't your fault.
~ Sara Zarr
And somewhere in between then and now irony slipped its way into my vocabulary. Laughter became the antidote for guilt. Sacrifice grew to be a Band-Aid for shame.
~ Sarah Kay
Why?" Pi asked. "What are your secret thoughts?" "Nothing," Mackenzie blurted out. Don't think about it, don't think about it. Tess shook her head. She doesn't want the whole school knowing she cheated on Cooper. Aha. "Tess!" Mackenzie yelled. Tess clamped her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to think it!
~ Sarah Mlynowski
Innately, the female knows how to cripple by sickening a man with guilt. It is a very special destruct, and she sends her curse to make a fellow impotent.
~ Saul Bellow
The job isn't done until you've blamed someone for the parts that went wrong.
~ Scott Adams
That was us.' I told him we were the kids who'd caused the Burneys' deaths.
~ Scott Heim
I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime. Together you will weigh this evidence. You will deliberate upon it. You will decide if it proves the defendant's guilt.
~ Scott Turow
Muriel never had had much concern about the arcane reasoning that emanated from appellate courts. The conflicts in the law that interested her were writ large—guilt or innocence, the rights of individuals against the rights of the community, the proper uses of power. The scrimshaw involved in etching decisions into words was largely decorative in her mind.
~ Scott Turow
I know what it's like to be manipulated, Aya-la. And I know what it's like to be in danger. While your city was building you mansions to live in, my friends and I have been protecting this planet. We've spilled more blood than you have flowing in your veins. So don't try to make me feel guilty! -Tally Youngblood, Extras
~ Scott Westerfeld
The Shrink always warned me that carriers stay wracked with lifelong guilt. It's not an uplifting thing having turned lovers into monsters. We feel bad that we haven't turned into monsters ourselves--survivor's guilt, that's called. And we feel a bit stupid that we didn't notice our own symptoms earlier. I mean, I'd been sort of wondering why the Atkins diet was giving me night vision. But that hadn't seemed like something to worry about...
~ Scott Westerfeld
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
~ John Adams