Quotes About Shame

The experience of shame may tend to lend legitimacy to the structure of authority that occasions it, for the majesty of judgment is affirmed in its very capacity to injure.

And I understood being made to feel guilty for things that weren't your fault.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.

Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stp it. There's just os much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up....

It didn't matter that I'd done none of those things. With shame, like horseshoes, proximity counts.

I am, of course, a rogue. A rapscallion. A musician. I would bring her nothing but poverty, shame, and bruised shins from my flailing limbs. She is the better for our parting.

With shame, like horseshoes, proximity counts.

Sorry? For what, Mom? She looked at me, eyes widening, For not protecting you, she said. All this time I'd been the one with everything to hide, everything to be ashamed of. Is hadn't even occurred to me that someone else might think to take the blame. I should have known what was happening. I should have known just by looking at you

Sorry? For what, Mom? She looked at me, eyes widening, For not protecting you, she said. All this time I'd been the one with everything to hide, everything to be ashamed of. It hadn't even occurred to me that someone else might think to take the blame. I should have known what was happening. I should have known just by looking at you.

I felt a surge of shame; I'd been so stupid to bring him here. Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger directly to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.

It was bad to be embarrassed, hard to be ashamed. But pitied? That was the worst of all.

And somewhere in between then and now irony slipped its way into my vocabulary. Laughter became the antidote for guilt. Sacrifice grew to be a Band-Aid for shame.

Me - I was not born with enough fuel. My anger often melts into sadness, it will just disintegrate into shame or fear, my clenched teeth release into chatter.

Shame is an odd emotion. It clings to things over which we have no control, like a scent.

The irony of informing nearly naked people in a wilderness setting about the story of naked Adam and Eve eating the fruit of knowledge and inventing the fashion industry due to a sudden need for clothing to hide their shame is not lost on Williams.

Oh shame, shame! Oh crying shame! How can we? Why do we allow ourselves? What are we doing? The last little room of dirt is waiting. Without windows. So for God's sake make a move, Henderson, put forth effort. You, too, will die of this pestilence. Death will annihilate you and nothing will remain, and there will be nothing left but junk...While something still is -- now! For the sake of all, get out!

I felt singularly ashamed of not being a doctor.

You have sexual tendencies that are not normal, and you should be ashamed of them.

Schämt euch, ihr Nüchternen! Schämt euch, ihr Weisen!

For those ashamed of him Cupid reserves the bitterest passions.

And why should I feel ashamed in that dreadful moment when my entire self trembles on the edge of being and not-being

Ye generous maids, revenge your sex's wrong; Let not the mean destroyer e'er approach Your sacred charms. Now muster all your pride, Contempt and scorn, that, shot from Beauty's eye, Confounds the mighty impudent, and smites The front unknown to shame.

These public executions are a positive disgrace.

The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it's you I'm addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction. You've read me this far, then? Even this far? For what discreditable motive? How is it you don't go to a movie, watch TV, stare at a wall, play tennis with a friend, make amorous advances to the person who comes to your mind when I speak of amorous advances? Can nothing surfeit, saturate you, turn you off? Where's your shame?