Quotes About Shame

First, to define the passion of shame, I think it may be called a sorrowful reflection on our own unworthiness, proceeding from an apprehension that others either do, or might, if they knew all, deservedly despise us.

The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate

That an action would be cowardly is not often found by an agent to be a consideration in its favor, but it could be, and in a counterethical way, ministering to a masochism of shame.

what could I say to Clovis? a woman had to obey her husband in those days, Rachel divorce was shameful and only granted on the grounds of adultery, if a marriage didn't work out, it was a life sentence

d'ailleurs, il n'y a pas de quoi avoir honte de vieillir notamment quand toute la race humaine est concernée même si parfois elle semble être la seule parmi ses amies à vouloir fêter les années qui passent parce que c'est un privilège de ne pas mourir prématurément, leur dit-elle (...)

Lord, how come she asking me this now? A colony of ants starts crawling all over my scalp, but I'm too afraid to attack them in case she interprets my discomfort. This is too much. Anything is a big word that can accommodate all things, and every thing, and some thing that, yes, she needs to know eventually, but it ain't easy giving voice to the love that brings shame .

On another note - Sarton writes about "people in their thirties mourning their lost youth because we have given them no ethos that makes maturity appear an asset." I very much feel this to be true. Turning twenty-one is the nadir of American achievement, one can get smashed legally, and as there are no further milestones after that, each succeeding birthday reeks of diminishment. People start to lie about their age, as if maturity is a thing to be ashamed of.

If you put the wrong foods in your body, you are contaminated and dirty and your stomach swells. Then the voice says, Why did you do that? Don't you know better? Ugly and wicked, you are disgusting to me.

Most of the White people I talk to either have not thought about their race and so don't feel anything, or have thought about it and felt guilt and shame. These feelings of guilty and shame are part of the hidden costs of racism.

The child who hates the parent becomes rigid—unable to let in love. He is so filled with shame that he feels that he cannot take in any further shame. He protects himself by making sure he is always "right." Such a person often becomes controlling, shaming, and/or abusive.

When we feel guilt, we feel badly about something we did or neglected to do. When we feel shame, we feel badly about who we are. Put another way: guilty people fear punishment, shamed people fear abandonment. When we feel guilty we need to learn it's okay to make mistakes. When we feel shame we need to learn it's okay to be who we are.

Someone has to champion us if the government won't. During the Draft Riots back home, mobs attacked members of the race all over the city. They even burned down a Colored orphanage. Those who hate us have no shame, and if dragging them from their houses teaches them a lesson, I'm all for dragging them out every night until they learn.

The brown paper bag test was well-known. Eddy always saw it as both shameful and ridiculous.

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

hangimiz, kaç?n?lmaz oldu?u bilinen ?eyler kar??s?nda bile, kendini biraz daha aldatmaktan, bu kaç?n?lmazdan kaç?labilece?i, belki de bu korkular?n ba?a hiç gelmeyece?i umuduna -bütün bo?lu?unu bilerek- kap?lmak çocuklu?unu göstermekten utanç duydu?

It was not our war, but it would be our disgrace, our shame. The West was filling to declare a war over the price of oil, but when it came to the wholesale slaughter of human beings we folded our hands across our chests and tapped our heels, with great anticipation that Sunday's sporting events would be wonderfully entertaining

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.

who love God but spend more than what God has chosen to provide. They incur large amounts of debt and experience the shame and pressure that accompanies it. And they wind up feeling overwhelmed.

Now guilt, fear, and shame controlled Adam and Eve's relationship. The guilt of their sin against a holy God, the fear of rejection, and the shame of how they saw themselves were now the framework for their responses to each other.

Doesn't matter how competent, intelligent, or accomplished you are. You've got it tucked away in there. And nobody can cope for any great period of time with the feeling of that nakedness. You know what shame does? It takes a particular violation or several violations from your past, something that really got to you, and convinces you the person you felt like in that violation is who you'll always be, for the rest of your life. Sad, huh?

Whenever I had a couple of bucks it was always so little I was ashamed to send it home, so I would give it to Lester Young to invest. I hoped he could shoot enough dice to parlay it into a bill big enough I didn't have to feel ashamed to send home.

I was too ashamed and afraid to confide in friends, and wanted to convince others and myself that my marriage was a success. I lost myself in my writing. Finding ways for my characters to overcome their problems and make their relationships work helped plaster over the wound caused by my inability to make things right at home.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

Rereading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was struck by what I had forgotten of the book: in a manner of pages, we encounter shame, history, ruin, conflicting stories, and wounds badly healed; in short, the South.