Quotes About Shame

This was arguably the most disgraceful episode in the bishop's chequered career,

I feel shame, not for the wrong things I have done, but for the right things that I have failed to do.

Swann, with that almost arrogant charity of a man of the world who, amid the dissolution of all his own moral prejudices, finds in another's shame merely a reason for treating him with a friendly benevolence...

además, comenzaban a ver en él esa vejez anormal, excesiva, vergonzosa y merecida de los solteros, de todas las personas para las cuales parece que el gran día que no tiene día siguiente sea más largo que para los demás, porque para ellos está vacío y los momentos van adicionándose desde la mañana sin llegar a dividirse después entre los hijos.

And ignominie, yet to glorie aspires   Vain glorious, and through infamie seeks fame:   Therfore Eternal silence be thir doome.

So having said, he thus to Eve in few: Say Woman, what is this which thou hast done? To whom sad Eve with shame nigh overwhelm'd, Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge Bold or loquacious, thus abasht repli'd. The Serpent me beguil'd and I did eate.

up they rose As from unrest; and, each the other viewing, Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds How darkened. Innocence, that, as a veil, Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone; Just confidence, and native righteousness, And honour, from about them, naked left To guilty shame; He covered, but his robe Uncovered more.

The steps to degradation are only three: the actuality of the shameful condition, the recognition of the actuality while feeling unable to do anything about it, and then acceptance of it as the normal state of affairs.

I really have nothing against rationality, or even doing what you think is best, or doing what is more likely to satisfy your desires. I have tried these strategies at various times, occasionally with good results. But I think the ideal of the rational agent is the source of lots of needless unhappiness. It's not the way many of us operate; it's certainly not the way I operate. And operating the way we do usually works just fine, and really isn't a reason to hang our heads in shame and despair.

Therefore, to every spirit which Christianity summons to her service, her exhortation is: Do what you can, and confess frankly what you are unable to do; neither let your effort be shortened for fear of failure, nor your confession silenced for fear of shame.

If you will make a man of the working creature, you can not make a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine-turning precision is lost at once. Out comes all his roughness, all the dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause:but out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon him. And, whether the clouds be bright or dark.

Upper lamp on lowest gain glowing down to white sheets and yellow hair and golden skin—so much gold for so little skin—and all of it, the gently rising flat tummy, the wide eyes closed or shielded or hidden, the positively dreamlike sweep of lines from throat to forehead and back again to the partial view of more yellow hair, but tufted, promising more hair and more gold . . . all of it glowing back up into the lamp, shaming it. Shaming me.

We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.

When people are engaged in something they are not proud of, they do not welcome witnesses. In fact, they come to believe the witness causes the trouble.

Her shame and fierceness were blended.

The bird looked much smaller dead than alive. Jody felt a little mean pain in his stomach, so he took out his pocketknife and cut off the bird's head. Then he disemboweled it, and took off its wings; and finally he threw all the pieces into the brush. He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it; he was ashamed because of their potential opinion.

Beyond my failings as a racist, I knew I was not wanted in the South. When people are engaged in something they are not proud of, they do not welcome witnesses.

Nearly everyone has his box of secret shame, shared with no one.

The shame of their ignorance was too great for the children.

And here he was, a big, fat, grown-up whoremaster, leaning his stomach against his desk while his cheeks darkened with blood and excited chills ran up his legs and thighs.

When her mother died, she felt little besides shame. Her mother had wanted so much to be loved, and she hadn't known how to draw love. Her importunities had bothered the children and driven them away.

their mother is a whore.

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.

Part of being human is being on the verge of disgrace.