Apology sends the clearest signal that we have the strength of character to reconcile ourselves with the truth.

One of the most useful tasks of apology is to bring home to us how keenly, honestly, and painfully past generations pursued aims that now seem to us wrong and disgraceful. It behooves us to consider if future geenrations will similarly regard the aims we most defend today.

Apology is both transactional, in that it restores what has been broken to what it was before, and transformational, in that it creates opportunities that didn't exist before.

Accepting the apology signals the acknowledgment of a need to move forward, but not necessarily together.

Apology may start as a feeling, a desire to make matters right, but it requires a commitment to move that desire into practice, to actually take on the great courageous task of showing compassion to others.

"I would like to apologize" may sound like an apology, but it is no more an actual apology than saying "I would like to lose weight" makes you suddenly slimmer.

Apology calls for a willingness to sacrifice on behalf of the wronged party and the inherent value of the relationship, not for what it brings to you but for what you can bring to it.