Quotes About Forgiveness

Must the Forgiver Trust the Offender? The simple answer is no. This should put to rest the fear that forgiving opens oneself to being injured again. On the contrary, forgiving is one of the best ways to stop a pattern of repeated injury.

Love wants the best for others, and the best is that they no longer offend. If we are complicit in the offense, as in the case of giving money to a compulsive gambler knowing that he may squander it, then we are not showing love. Forgiveness is free; trust must be earned. Sometimes trust is never justified.

The forgiveness process, properly understood and used, can free those bound by anger and resentment. It does not require accepting injustice or remaining in an abusive situation. It opens the door to reconciliation, but it does not require trusting someone who has proven untrustworthy. Even if the offender remains unrepentant, you can forgive and restore a sense of peace and well-being to your life.

At first, people want to harbor anger, thinking that it shows self-respect to remain angry. "He can't do this to me. I won't take it!" Eventually, they come to see that the harbored anger is compromising their personality. They are more surly and hot-tempered than they were before.

But if you find that your anger hasn't passed away in a reasonable amount of time or if weeks, months, or years after the hurtful event you are still ruminating over the injury, plotting revenge, or feeling the same level of pain, your anger has probably turned into a smoldering resentment. You are a prime candidate for choosing the forgiveness process.

Regret is so much harder to live with than failure

there is therefore now no condemnation for two reasons: you are dead now; and God, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has been dead all along. The blame game was over before it started. It really was. All Jesus did was announce that truth and tell you it would make you free. It was admittedly a dangerous thing to do. You are a menace. Be he did it; and therefore, menace or not, here you stand: uncondemned, forever, now. What are you going to do with your freedom?

Grace doesn't sell; you can hardly even give it away, because it works only for losers and no one wants to stand in their line.

Most wars start with a lie, good wars, bad wars, they start with a lie, and the peace that comes afterwards, those promises of forgiveness and cooperation and fair play for all… those are lies too, lies wrapped in hope.

La mayoría de las personas no entiende el perdón. Siempre se piden perdón unas a otras, cuando lo que cada una de ellas necesita es perdonarse a sí misma por haber creado una situación en la que es necesario el perdón.

To be social is to be forgiving.

Yes, and even for the past...that it will turn out to have been all right for what it was. Something I can accept. Mistakes made by the self I had to be or was not able to be.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

I have wished a bird would fly away, And not sing by my house all day; Have clapped my hands at him from the door When it seemed as if I could bear no more. The fault must partly have been in me. The bird was not to blame for his keys. And of course there must be something wrong In waiting to silence any song.

For to be social is to be forgiving.

Nothing can make injustice just but mercy.

A Prince asked the dying spanish statesman, Does your Excellency forgive all your enemies? I do not have to forgive all my enemies, answered the stateman, I have had them all shot.

In a speech Abraham Lincoln delivered at the height of the Civil War, he referred to the Southerners as fellow human beings who were in error. An elderly lady chastised him for not calling them irreconcilable enemies who must be destroyed. "Why, madam," Lincoln replied, "do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

While a friend expects more and more favors, and seethes with jealousy, these former enemies expected nothing and got everything. A man suddenly spared the guillotine is a grateful man indeed, and will go to the ends of the earth for the man who has pardoned him.

Jesus does not eat with sinners to celebrate their sin. He does so to celebrate his grace.

Indeed, I have been a complete ass, and I know it. Will you overlook it this once and forgive me, and let things go on as before?

If you were closer, I'd slap you, she said. Let me help, I replied, and stepped closer. She promptly slapped me, which surprised me only a little. We glared at each other in the near dark, and then she looked away. I'm sorry I slapped you, she said. That's all right. I quite enjoyed it.

Negative feelings of hate, anger, and selfishness can destroy the well-being of any individual.

Love is the most important part of life, isn't it. If you have love you can live in this world in a true way and if you love each other you can see past everything and accept what you don't understand and forgive what you don't know or don't like. Love is all. Love is patient and boundless and right-hearted and long-suffering. I hope you may love each other all your days of life together. And I hope you may have a great many years of those days.