logo

Quotes About Shame

Casi todo el mundo se avergüenza de su juventud, no es muy cierto que se añore como se dice, más bien se relega o rehúye y con facilidad o esfuerzo se confina el origen a la esfera de los malos sueños, o de las novelas, o de lo que no ha existido. La juventud se oculta, la juventud es secreta para quienes ya no nos conocen jóvenes.
~ Javier Marías
Mis manos son de tu color; pero me avergüenzo de llevar un corazón tan blanco.
~ Javier Marías
Many people have a secret fear that they are bad.
~ Eckhart Tolle
We spend too much time concealing our neediness. We need to stop hiding. Being needy is our basic condition. There is no shame in it—it's just the way it is. Understanding this, accepting it, and practicing it will make you a better helper.
~ Ed Welch
From Genesis on, nakedness, or the shame of being exposed to others, became one of the great curses in Hebrew culture. It was a profound curse because it symbolized the deeper, spiritual nakedness and shame that needed covering. It symbolized that apart from God's covering, we stand naked before him.
~ Ed Welch
The same was true of two personified emotions esteemed highest of all feelings in Homer and Hesiod: NEMESIS, usually translated as Righteous Anger, and AIDOS, a difficult word to translate, but in common use among the Greeks. It means reverence and the shame that holds men back from wrongdoing, but it also means the feeling a prosperous man should have in the presence of the unfortunate—not compassion, but a sense that the difference between him and those poor wretches is not deserved.
~ Edith Hamilton
Should I come to you, Father, with anything that made me ashamed? What do I matter? What's honour to me? My honour is to keep her from harm and from grief. I have no other; I want none.
~ Edith Pargeter
Here was no retrospective pretense of an opulent past, such as the other Invaders were given to parading before the bland but undeceived subject race. The Spraggs had been plain people and had not yet learned to be ashamed of it. The
~ Edith Wharton
It was horrible of a young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded the charges against her, she must be to blame for their having been made.
~ Edith Wharton
Enquanto a vergonha mantiver sua vigia, a virtude não será inteiramente extinta do coração, nem a moderação será totalmente exilada das mentes dos tiranos.
~ Edmund Burke
I believe that many of the boys have a lurking fear that their parents will disgrace them in some fashion.
~ Edmund Crispin
The best explanation of masochism, the appeal of masochism, is that it accepts shame; the sickening shame one must swallow and hide is at last accepted, employed, even loved—the shame about a mutilation, hairiness, too much or not enough fat, the shame about wanting to serve, to be a dog, son, wife, slave, horse, prisoner.
~ Edmund White
I saw that the anger and hauteur of the past, which I'd accepted without interpreting, had been merely a counterpart to his isolation and the terrible shame he'd felt about the way he looked. If he couldn't participate in the festivities of friendship and romance, then he'd burn the tents and poison the wells.
~ Edmund White
Mr Earbrass stands on the terrace at twilight. It is bleak; it is cold; and the virtue has gone out of everything. Words drift through his mind: anguish turnips conjunctions illness defeat string parties no parties urns desuetude disaffection claws loss Trebizond napkins shame stones distance fever Antipodes mush glaciers incoherence labels miasma amputation tides deceit mourning elsewards...
~ Edward Gorey
Shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated. Or, to strengthen the language, You are disgraced because you acted less than human, you were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.
~ Edward T. Welch
Shame is life-dominating and stubborn. Once entrenched in your heart and mind, it is a squatter that refuses to leave.
~ Edward T. Welch
With our touch, Jesus becomes our scapegoat. In his touch, Jesus takes our sin and absorbs our shame (Psalm 69:9; Romans 15:3), and we receive his righteousness. If you prefer symmetry in your relationships, in which you give a gift of similar value to the one you receive, you have not yet touched Jesus.
~ Edward T. Welch
These words point in the right direction, but some of them, such as embarrassed, insulted, different, and ignored, can fade with time. Real shame requires more intensity. That's why the language of this next list may make you want to turn away, but it's much closer to shame. Unclean Dishonored Filthy Shunned Disgusting Defiled Outcast Unlovable Discarded Repulsive Disgraced Worthless Loathed Scorned Vile
~ Edward T. Welch
Shame is not a mirage. It is very real. A sexually violated woman feels contaminated by what has been done to her, and she really is contaminated. A person who has lived with rejection can't neutralize it with happy thoughts. Shame is like dirt. No matter how it happened, you are a mess and something has to be done about it. When you are dirty, there is no feel-as-if about it.
~ Edward T. Welch
The first steps out of shame will be the hardest. These are the anti-denial steps in which we will put shame into words. You can't do battle with something nameless, and too often shame eludes accurate identification. So we will search for words that bring shame out into the open, where it can be seen and fought against.
~ Edward T. Welch
You would think that anyone would jump at the chance to escape shame. But that isn't the way it happens. Though shamed people are happy to guide others out of their dark prisons, they are always sure to get back to their own prisons by nightfall. That's home. That's what they are used to.
~ Edward T. Welch
People familiar with shame are willing to wash feet, but they are uncomfortable with other people washing their feet. They are better at serving than being served. Well, get used to being served.
~ Edward T. Welch
The language of shame is extreme. Hear it enough and you believe it. You are told you are disgusting and unclean, and eventually you believe you are.
~ Edward T. Welch
The cure for shame will always be found in how we become connected to God.
~ Edward T. Welch