Guilt Quotes

• Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.

  Veronica Roth

  Done, Next, Feeling Guilty

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• Guilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Self, Trade

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• Sometimes love needs a rest from caring, and so bears for an intolerable few hours the guilt of not caring.

  Robert Breault

  Love, Caring, Needs

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• He that is in haste may contract much guilt in a little time. What we say or do unadvisedly when we are hot, we must unsay or undo again when we are cool, or do worse.

  Matthew Henry

  Haste, Hot, May

  Matthew Henry, Philip Henry (1855). “The miscellaneous works of the Rev. Matthew Henry: containing in addition to those heretofore published, numerous sermons and papers, now first printed from the original manuscripts. With forty sermons on what Christ is made to believers, by Philip Henry; funeral sermons for Mr. and Mrs. Henry, by the Rev. Matthew Henry; funeral sermons on Mr. Matthew Henry, by W. Tong, John Reynolds, and Dr. Williams”, p.309

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• I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.

  Audre Lorde

  Choices, Creative, Tree

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.130, Crossing Press

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• A dirty player is somebody who ultimately is trying to hurt somebody. There's a huge difference. There's no gray in that. Like, you have no conscience, no nothing, no guilt. I don't have that mean streak in me. I don't play angry. It's not anger.

  Ndamukong Suh

  Hurt, Dirty, Mean

  "He Didn't Mean to Hurt You" by Jeanne Marie Laskas, www.gq.com. August 20, 2012.

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• Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking back in guilt or sorrow.

  Eknath Easwaran

  Sorrow, Done, Amends

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• Power acquired by guilt was never used for a good purpose.
  [Lat., Imperium flagitio acquisitum nemo unquam bonis artibus exercuit.]

  Tacitus

  Power, Purpose, Nemo

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• guilt is a pollutant and we don't need any more of it in the world.

  Ann Landers

  Needs, World

  Ann Landers (1979). “The Ann Landers Encyclopedia, A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially, Spiritually”

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• Mother believed in enjoying herself. Aunt Mimi believed in enjoying herself, then feeling guilty about it.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Mother, Aunt, Feelings

  Rita Mae Brown (2009). “Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser”, p.70, Bantam

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• Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostasy.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, Long, Too Much

  Edmund Burke (2008). “The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke: On Conciliation with America; Security of the Independence of Parliament; on Mr. Fox's East India”, p.242, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Knowing cats, a lifetime of cats, what is left is a sediment of sorrow quite different from that due to humans: compounded of pain for their helplessness, of guilt on behalf of us all.

  Doris Lessing

  Pain, Cat, Knowing

  Doris May Lessing (1991). “Particularly Cats-- and Rufus”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• Isn't three quarters of life a guilty pleasure?

  Joan Collins

  Three, Pleasure, Quarters

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• where everybody is guilty, nobody is.

  Hannah Arendt

  Responsibility, Guilty

  Hannah Arendt (1981). “The Life of the Mind”, p.440, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.

  Ayn Rand

  Running, Joy, Religion

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.124, Penguin

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• Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Suffering, Surrender, Hardest

  Nathaniel Branden (2011). “How to Raise Your Self-Esteem: The Proven Action-Oriented Approach to Greater Self-Respect and Self-Confidence”, p.83, Bantam

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• We live in a society where we're not taught how to deal with our weaknesses and frailties as human beings. We're not taught how to speak to our difficulties and challenges. We're taught the Pythagorean theorem and chemistry and biology and history. We're not taught anger management. We're not taught dissolution of fear and how to process shame and guilt. I've never in my life ever used the Pythagorean theorem!

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Pythagorean Theorem, Challenges, Taught

  "Iyanla Vanzant interview for fourth season of ‘Iyanla: Fix My Life’ returning Sept. 6". Interview with Rodney Ho, radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com. September 6, 2014.

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• People who are prone to guilt tend to work harder and perform better than people who are not guilt-prone, and are perceived to be more capable leaders.

  David D. Burns

  Hard Work, People, Leader

  Source: time.com

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• Surprisingly, it's forgiveness, not guilt, that increases accountability. Researchers have found that taking a self-compassionate point of view on a personal failure makes people more likely to take personal responsibility for the failure than when they take a self-critical point of view. They also are more willing to receive feedback and advice from others, and more likely to learn from the experience.

  David D. Burns

  Responsibility, Self, Views

  Source: time.com

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• If a hungry lion suddenly appeared, you'd be terrified. So terrified you'd probably run away. Great, fear's doing its job. But you might get so afraid that you lock up and can't move. This would be very bad. Guilt's the same. It can prevent you from fixing the situation, make you feel so bad you can't function at 100% and even lead to more guilt-provoking bad behavior.

  David D. Burns

  Running, Jobs, Moving

  Source: time.com

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• More often than not, the belief that you are bad contributes to the "bad" behavior. Change and learning occur most readily when you (a) recognize that an error has occurred and (b) develop a strategy for correcting the problem. An attitude of self-love and relaxation facilitates this, whereas guilt often interferes.

  David D. Burns

  Attitude, Errors, Behavior Change

  David D. Burns (1980). “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy”

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• Guilt doesn't help. What should fill in for it? Remorse. Remorse is when you feel bad about what you did. Guilt is when you feel bad about who you are.

  David D. Burns

  Helping, Should, Feels

  Source: time.com

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• Guilt is not the best way to remedy your mistakes.

  David D. Burns

  Mistake, Way, Remedy

  Source: time.com

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• To 'justify' means nothing else than to acquit of guilt him (her) who was accused as if his own innocence were confirmed.

  John Calvin

  Mean, Innocence, Accused

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• I never think of my audience when I write a poem. I try to write out of whatever is haunting me; in order for a poem to feel authentic, I have to feel I'm treading on very dangerous ground, which can mean that the resulting revelations may prove hurtful to other people. The time for thinking about that kind of guilt or any collective sense of responsibility, however, occurs much later in the creative process, after the poem is finished.

  Rita Dove

  Writing, Mean, Responsibility

  Interview with M. Wynn Thomas, www.english.illinois.edu. August 12, 1995.

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