Quotes About Guilt

Lepsius vede il viso glaciale dell'uomo che ha superato ogni sentimentalità, il viso dell'uomo che sta di là dalla colpa e dai suoi rimorsi, vede il grazioso volto di precisione di una specie a lui sconosciuta ma che gli toglie il respiro, vede l'ingenuità inquietante, quasi perfino innocente, della perfetta empietà.

WHEN SOMEBODY you've wronged forgives you, you're spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience. When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you're spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride. For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other's presence.

A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.

I suffer: someone or other must be guilty' – and every sick sheep thinks the same.

He who is punished is never he who performed the deed. He is always the scapegoat.

The bite of conscience is indecent.

Men were considered free only so that they might be considered guilty - could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness.

It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation.

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin.

I suffer: someone or other must be guilty - Every sick sheep thinks the same.

He reacts slowly to every kind of stimulus, with that slowness which a protracted caution and a willed pride have bred in him – he tests an approaching stimulus, he is far from going out to meet it. He believes in neither 'misfortune' nor in 'guilt': he knows how to forget – he is strong enough for everything to have to turn out for the best for him. Very well, I am the opposite of a décadent: for I have just described myself.

Men were thought of as 'free' so that they could become guilty: consequently, every action had to be thought of as willed, the origin of every action as lying in the consciousness

we immoralists especially are trying with all our might to remove the concept of guilt and the concept of punishment from the world and to purge psychology, history, nature, the social institutions and sanctions of them

Oh the human infatuation with guilt and retribution! The dread of and perhaps desire for punishment! How ready we are for others to hate us! Midnight in the Mirror World

The nearer Christ comes to a heart, the more it becomes conscious of its guilt; it will then either ask for his mercy and find peace, or else it will turn against Him because it is not yet ready to give up its sinfulness. Thus He will separate the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff. Man's reaction to this Divine Presence will be the test: either it will call out all the opposition of egotistic natures, or else galvanize them into a regeneration and a resurrection.

There has been no single influence which has done more to prevent man from finding God and rebuilding his character, has done more to lower the moral tone of society than the denial of personal guilt. This repudiation of man's personal responsibility for his action is falsely justified in two ways: by assuming that man is only an animal and by giving a sense of guilt the tag "morbid.

Mary!—we poor creatures of earth are stumbling over our freedoms, fumbling over our choices. Millions of us are seeking to give up their freedom—some by repudiating it, because of the burden of their guilt—some, by surrendering it to the moods and fashions of the time—others, by absorption into Communism, where there is only one will, which is the dictator's, and where the only love is hate and revolution!

An unsuffering Christ Who did not freely pay the debt of human guilt would be reduced to the level of an ethical guide;

No individual is ever made better by having his guilt excused as the result of his external environment, of bad playgrounds, of Oedipus or Electra, of Grade B milk, bad politics, or want of social opportunity.

The nearer Christ comes to a heart, the more it becomes conscious of its guilt; it will then either ask for His mercy and find peace, or else it will turn against Him because it is not yet ready to give up its sinfulness.

All of my pleasures are guilty, but that's just the way I'm wired.

My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parents and my father's doctor had all decided it was wiser for me to go to South America than to stay home and see Papa waste away. For a long time, I felt an enormous sense of guilt about having left my father's side when he was so sick.

When we grow older and begin to realize that our omnipotence is really not so omnipotent, that our strongest wishes are not powerful enough to make the impossible possible, the fear that we have contributed to the death of a loved one diminishes - and with it, the guilt.

I think whenever you lose somebody close to you, there's always a part of you that wishes you could have done something differently.