Guilt Quotes - Page 29

• Let us not search for the guilty ones only among others, let us speak the bitter truth: we are all guilty ... each and every one of us.

  Maxim Gorky

  Bitter, Speak, Guilty

  9 Copy quote

• When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not seek to evade the memory: make yourself relive it, confront it repeatedly over and over, till finally, you will discover, through sheer repetition it loses its power to pain you. It works, I guarantee you, this sure-fire guilt-eradicator, like a homeopathic medicine - like in small doses applied to like. It works, but I am not sure that it is a good thing.

  Mary McCarthy

  Pain, Memories, Thinking

  "How I Grew". Book by Mary McCarthy, 1987.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places — whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest — where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Heart, Blood, Church

  "Young Goodman Brown" (1835)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the reasons I love prayer is that it is an antidote to guilt and blame. If we are unhappy with the way we have acted or been treated, instead of stewing in self-recrimination on the one hand, or harboring ill will toward someone else on the other, prayer gives us a way out of the circle of guilt and blame. We bring our painful feelings into the open and say, "I have done wrong," or "I have been wronged." And then we ask for a vaster view--one that contains within it all the forgiveness we need in order to move forward.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Prayer, Moving, Ill Will

  25 Copy quote

• The problem with guilt is that it cements you to the past.

  Kevin Leman

  Past, Problem, Cement

  Kevin Leman (2011). “It's Your Kid, Not a Gerbil: Creating a Happier & Less-Stressed Home”, p.182, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• From the perspective of the one committing suicide, his or her act can be one of the most perverse forms of moral manipulation, as it abandons those left behind to their shame, guilt, and grief. Suicide is something like a metaphysical "I gotcha!" It is often an attempt to kill or wound others.

  Stanley Hauerwas

  Suicide, Grief, Perspective

  Stanley Hauerwas (2001). “The Hauerwas Reader”, p.591, Duke University Press

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• The public's continuing ambivalence about cultural matters is all the more striking given that the political conversation on these issues has for 30 years been dominated by an aggressive, radical right-wing insurgency that has achieved an influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Its potent secret weapon has been the guilt and anxiety about desire that inform the character of Americans regardless of ideology; appealing to those largely unconscious emotions, the right has disarmed, intimidated, paralyzed its opposition.

  Ellen Willis

  Character, Years, Wings

  "Escape from Freedom". "Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination", Vol 1, No 2, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.

  R. Scott Bakker

  Lying, Eye, Men

  R. Scott Bakker (2008). “The Thousandfold Thought: The Prince of Nothing, Book Three (The Prince of Nothing)”, p.47, The Overlook Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• One part of love is innocence One part of love is guilt One part the milk that in a sense Is soured as soon as spilt One part of love is sentiment One part of love is lust One part is the presentiment Of our return to dust

  Clive Barker

  Love, Dust, Lust

  FaceBook post by Clive Barker from Aug 16, 2013

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality's laws - poorly understood and applied - are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.

  C.P. Cavafy

  Distance, Responsibility, Passion

  "The Regiment of the Senses". Poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, transl. by Manuel Savidis, www.cavafy.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm interested in avoiding two types of behaviour [in my children]: one is the sense of guilt and the other is a sense of entitlement. If these two are avoided, then the rest is up to them.

  John Elkann

  Children, Two, Talking

  "Unlikely Heir Who Saved the Family Jewels". Financial Times, March 06, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Moreover, there is this completely false trial. I would participate wholeheartedly in a trial if it were to determine the guilt for 5 million murdered people and the guilt for the atrocities. But I see in this trial endless other things brought out and I have the feeling that in the shadow of the guilt of these murders the German people shall be considered guilty of everything, and in the shadow of this guilt the Americans, English, French, and especially the Russians will want to get rid of their own dirty linen.

  Hans Fritzsche

  Dirty, People, Feelings

  "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately, (p. 71), 2004.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The butchering may continue as it will, it shall remain the historical guilt of the Western powers that they did not promptly provide the sharpest preventative measures against the continued attack-politics Germany undertook. Possibilities existed for this, but no measures were seized upon.

  Friedrich Kellner

  Historical, Germany, May

  Diary entry, May 29, 1940.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The gospel proceeds on the basis of universal depravity; the gospel assimilates all varieties of human nature into one common experience of guilt and need and helplessness; and this is just what you do not like about it.

  William Morley Punshon

  Needs, Common Experience, Human Nature

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 189, 1895.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The enormous success of 2009's 'The Blind Side,' in which Sandra Bullock makes a black teenager one of the family, demonstrates that America isn't post-racial. It is thoroughly mired in race - the myths that surround it, the guilt it inspires, the discomfort it causes, the struggle to transcend it.

  Wesley Morris

  Teenager, Struggle, Race

  4 Copy quote

• Only a fool is interested in other people's guilt, since he cannot alter it. The wise man learns only from his own guilt. He will ask himself: Who am I that all this should happen to me? To find the answer to this fateful question he will look into his own heart.

  Carl Jung

  Wise, Heart, Men

  Carl Gustav Jung (1977). “The Collected Works of C. G. Jung”, Bollingen

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• One key to successful relationships is learning to say "no" without guilt, so that you can say "yes" without resentment.

  Bill Crawford

  Successful, Keys, Resentment

  7 Copy quote

• To minimize my guilt at going to the pictures - to call this wanton pursuit of an effete pleasure by another name - I needed movie companions as drunkards need drinking partners. If I entered a cinema alone, God might plunge his arm through the roof of the auditorium booming in a stereophonic voice, 'And you, Crisp, what are you doing here?' I would never have dared reply, 'I'm just enjoying myself, Lord.'

  Quentin Crisp

  Drinking, Names, Voice

  "The Naked Civil Servant". Book by Quentin Crisp, Chapter 27, 1968.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unfortunately the student often feels guilt for not living the type of life that their Teacher suggested, or they feel that they are intrinsically bad and incapable of leading a higher life.

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Buddhism, Rama

  4 Copy quote

• Royal relationships across the generations have often been strained and distant, rather than close and affectionate. Most eldest sons, interminably waiting to become king, have not been on the best of terms with the sovereign to whose death they look forward with a debilitating combination of guilt-ridden anxiety and eager anticipation. And younger sons (and daughters, too) have often found their lives empty of purpose: cut off by their royal statius, but unable to find anything rewarding with which to fill the time.

  David Cannadine

  Daughter, Kings, Son

  4 Copy quote

• With their own record of killing 12 million American Indians and supporting slavery for four decades after the British abolished it, Americans wish to project their historical guilt on to someone else.

  Andrew Roberts

  History, Historical, Wish

  4 Copy quote

• The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the demons.

  Edward Gibbon

  Angel, Atheism, Battle

  Edward Gibbon (1825). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 3: Complete in Eight Volumes”, p.73

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• By right, as the word is employed in this subject, has always been understood discretion, that is, a full and complete power of either doing a thing or omitting it, without the person's becoming liable to animadversion or censure from another, that is, in other words, without his incurring any degree of turpitude or guilt. Now in this sense I affirm that man has no rights, no discretionary power whatever.

  William Godwin

  Men, Rights, Atheism

  William Godwin (1793). “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness”, p.111

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Paranoia reduces anxiety and guilt by transferring to the other all the characteristics one does not want to recognize in oneself. It is maintained by selective perception and recall. We only see and acknowledge those negative aspects of the enemy that support the stereotype we have already created.

  Sam Keen

  Support, Anxiety, Perception

  7 Copy quote

• Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone. A trap. Because then he will be no longer without guilt.

  Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  Atheism, Stones, Firsts

  14 Copy quote