Quotes About Forgiveness

Love heals. Heals and liberates.

there are times when no one is right, and sometimes among family and children, no one can admit that there is no right, and that maybe at the same time there is no wrong. But in this case I was wrong and I appreciate Vivian Baxter for being big enough to accept my apology.

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully.

I have made many mistakes and no doubt will make more before I die. When I have seen pain, when I have found that my ineptness has caused displeasure, I have learned to accept my responsibility and to forgive myself first, then to apologize to anyone injured by my misreckoning. Since I cannot in-live history, and repentance is all I can offer God, I have hopes that my sincere apologies were accepted.

I missed you but I knew you were in the best place for you. I would have been a terrible mother. I had no patience. Maya, when you were about two years old, you asked me for something. I was busy talking, so you hit my hand, and I slapped you off the porch without thinking. It didn't mean I didn't love you; it just meant I wasn't ready to be a mother. I'm explaining to you, not apologizing. We would have all been sorry had I kept you.

I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer.

When old folks laugh, they consider the promise of dear painless death, and generously forgive life for happening to them.

There was no need to discuss racial prejudice. Hadn't we all, black and white, just snatched the remaining Jews from the hell of concentration camps? Race prejudice was dead. A mistake made by a young country. Something to be forgiven as an unpleasant act committed by an intoxicated friend.

Black people rarely forgave whites for being ragged, unkempt and uncaring. There was a saying which explained the disapproval: 'You been white all your life. Ain't got no further along than this? What ails you?

Africans find it hard to forgive us slavery, don't they? He took my hand and said, I thought you would have known that. My dear, they can't forgive us, and even more terrible, they can't forgive themselves. They're like the young here in this tragic country [Germany]. They will never forgive their parents for what they did to the Jews, and they can't forgive the Jews for surviving and being a living testament to human bestiality.

Upon certain subject I am able to hold my tongue and hope that time will right wrongs.

Could I tell her now? The terrible pain assured me that I couldn't. What he did to me, and what I allowed, must have been very bad if already God let me hurt so much.

I decided I wouldn't pee on her if her heart was on fire.

Love. And again, see I don't mean, I think love is that condition in the human spirit so profund, that it allows us to forgive, and it may be the energy which keeps the stars in the firmament, I'm not sure. It may be the energy which keeps the blood running smoothly through our veins. I'm not sure, but it's something beyond the explanation. It can be used for anything you can explain. Any good thing you can explain.

The incident was a recurring dream, concocted years before by stupid whites and it eternally came back to haunt us all. The secretary and I were like Hamlet and Laertes in the final scene, where, because of harm done by one ancestor to another, we were bound to duel to the death. Also because the play must end somewhere. I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer.

We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate—thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising. —Maya Angelou

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

I was crying loudly now. Momma's voice had risen to a shouting pitch, and I knew that whatever wrong I had committed was extremely serious.

Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it.

But you'll turn your back As you often do Yet I am your sons And your daughters too.

Let me thank you That my selfishness, ignorance, and mockery Did not bring you to Discard me like a broken doll Which had lost its favor. I thank you that You still find something in me To cherish, to admire, and to love.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

We had cooked the food of a nation of racists, and despite the many opportunities, there were few stories of black servants poisoning white families. If that didn't show mercy, then I misunderstood the word.

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present gratefully.