Quotes About Forgiveness

“There is no such thing as a "broken family." Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“People have to forgive. We don't have to like them, we don't have to be friends with them, we don't have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. Because if we don't we are tying rocks to our feet, too much for our wings to carry!”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Anger is like flowing water; there's nothing wrong with it as long as you let it flow. Hate is like stagnant water; anger that you denied yourself the freedom to feel, the freedom to flow; water that you gathered in one place and left to forget. Stagnant water becomes dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, deadly; that is your hate. On flowing water travels little paper boats; paper boats of forgiveness. Allow yourself to feel anger, allow your waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness. Be human.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”
― Anne Lamott

“What I cannot love, I overlook.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Listen. Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive.”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

“Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“I want to be the kind of person who can do that. Move on and forgive people and be healthy and happy. It seems like an easy thing to do in my head. But it's not so easy when you try it in real life.”
― Susane Colasanti, Waiting For You

“...if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will be the same again.”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

“Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here for?

“We don't forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need it--because we need it.”
― Bree Despain, The Dark Divine

“What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?”
― Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle

“I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had laughter, and the world was coloured, not black and white and grey. I am so sorry for hurting you. I could inflict all kinds of pain on myself, but it would not take back any I gave to you. - David Power”
― Maeve Binchy, Echoes

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Always forgive, but never forget, else you will be a prisoner of your own hatred, and doomed to repeat your mistakes forever.”
― Wil Zeus, Sun Beyond the Clouds

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

“Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare...”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Forgiving men is so much easier than forgiving women.”
― Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
― Marianne Williamson

“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”
― Emma Goldman

“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you are.”
― Cherie Carter-Scott

“There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

“I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn’t a final destination. You don’t one day get there and get to stay.”
― Deb Caletti

“Offer it up personally,then. Right now. I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer-you can finish the business yourself, from within yourself. It's not only possible, it's essential.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.”
― Anne Lamott

“Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.

It was love lashed by its own self that spoke. It was pride half slain that fluttered in the dust. It was my hunger for your love that raged from the housetop, while my own love, kneeling in silence, prayed your forgiveness.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems