Popular quotes about Guilt! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you.
J. D. SalingerI say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society.
Harper LeeShe say guilt is a useless emotion." "Oh, please," says Nancy. "Guilt is what separates humans from animals.
Anna QuindlenGuilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.
John LennonYou feel guilt when you're not necessarily in the best mood and you say to your fans "No, I don't want to take a photo," or you're not as happy or bubbly as they probably thought you would be. I've had to remind myself that's okay. No one's forcing me or any other celebrity to take time out of their day to say hi to these fans or do these things. There is a sense of guilt that you can feel sometimes for not meeting their expectations, but that's kind of wrong for me to think that way, because I am a person.
Lili ReinhartSuffering 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 BrandenWhen the masculine mystique is pulling boys and men out into the world to growl manly noises at one another, the only power with astronger pull on the male psyche is maternally induced guilt. The guilt is quite necessary for our moral development, but it is often uncomfortable.
Frank PittmanI 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 LordeThis was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong.
Atul GawandeGuilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on.
Ayn RandMy doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
Anna SewellGuilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment: only there does its satisfaction lie.
Lawrence DurrellIt's great to be recognized when I'm looking for a table at a crowded restaurant, but I still don't put it to best use. I'm such a lump. I won't cut the line. It's my Catholic guilt. I gotta get used to it
Christopher MeloniIf all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
Charlotte BronteI am, I must confess, suspicious of those who denounce others for having too much sex. At what point does a healthy amount become too much? There are, of course, those who suffer because their desire for sex has become compulsive; in their case the drive (loneliness, guilt) is at fault, not the activity as such. When morality is discussed I invariably discover, halfway into the conversation, that what is meant are not the great ethical questions but the rather dreary business of sexual habit, which to my mind is an aesthetic rather than an ethical issue.
Edmund WhiteNo-fault guilt: This is when, instead of trying to figure out who's to blame, everyone pays.
Judith ViorstI love you still, but with your death I succumbed to a kind of infatuation. I convinced myself that what you and I had, so very briefly, was of far vaster and deeper import than it truly was. Of all the weapons we chose to turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one's own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.
Steven EriksonOne unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of the one by the pain of the other.
Friedrich NietzscheMuch of the impotence of American churches is tied to a profound ignorance and apathy about justification. Our people live in a fog of guilt. Or just as bad, they think being a better person is all God requires.
Kevin DeYoungLife...as God intended it enables us to live above the drag of fear, superstition, shame, pessimism, guilt, anxiety, worry, and all the negativity that keeps people from seizing each day as a gift from Him.
Charles R. SwindollGuilt implanted at a tender age is not easy to destroy. A weed, it sprouts in unexpected places.
Caryl RiversWe have made drugs an Olympic event. It receives most of the coverage at the Games and even the suspicion of guilt can ruin a reputation for life.
Bill ToomeyI thought of all the magazine article I'd read on mothers who worked and constantly felt guilty about leaving their children with someone else. I had trained myself to read pieces like that and silently say to myself, 'See how lucky you are?' But it had been gnawing at the inside, that part that didn't fit, that I never let myself even think about. After all, wasn't it a worse kind of guilt to be with your child and to know that you wanted to be anywhere but there?
Jodi PicoultBut the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt, the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head; gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men; and felt its peace sink deep into his heart.
Charles DickensSome worry endlessly over missions that were missed, or marriages that did not turn out, or babies that did not arrive, or children that seem lost, or dreams unfulfilled, or because age limits what they can do. I do not think it pleases the Lord when we worry because we think we never do enough or that what we do is never good enough....Some needlessly carry a heavy burden of guilt which could be removed through confession and repentance.
Boyd K. PackerWe have rejected such spectacles as the Coliseum. How then, when we do not even look on killing lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death?
Athenagoras of AthensOnly the Lord Jesus can redeem the soul that is steeped in guilt and shame. This baggage weighs us down until we accept Jesus' gift-the gift that liberates souls from sin's power.
Billy GrahamIt happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt.
Veronica RothI used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook refresh me and put me into a more workable perspective.
Madeleine L'EngleBaptism is rich in meaning. It suggests cleansing. When you are a disciple, you understand that you are cleansed by Christ. You understand that Christ died in your place on the cross, paying for your sins, fully forgiving you for all your wrongs. You are cleansed from guilt, and you are becoming a cleaner, healthier, more whole person.
Brian D. McLarenLawrence Gilliard Jr. is a fine actor and I've always felt some residual guilt that we killed him so early in The Wire. It was always planned that way; we didn't kill him because of anything he did, we don't kill off actors just to do it.
David SimonThere's no regret. You can't regret. I mean, I've felt regret but I've also refused to allow regret to sow a seed and live in me because I don't believe it. You feel it, it's like guilt, it's like jealousy, it's like all those horrible things. You've just got to snip them and get them out, because they're no good.
Jude LawSince our awareness of others is considered our duty, the price we pay when things go wrong is guilt and self-hatred. And things always go wrong. We respond with apologies; we continue to apologize long after the event is forgotten - and even if it had no causal relation to anything we did to begin with.
Nancy ChodorowIn her memoir, Anne Robinson recounts the wake-up call which motivated her to stop drinking. Leaving her eight-year-old daughter alone in their car while she went to buy liquor, she returned to find her daughter with tears running down her cheeks. The guilt and horror Ms. Robinson felt at this sight jolted her into sobriety.
Anne RobinsonWhen you feel depressed, it helps to actively change your environment. Go and do something different. Martin Luther conquered his depression by going outside to work in his garden. Surprisingly enough, one of the best ways to handle depression is to go to work immediately on the task you least enjoy. (The chances are your depression is caused by guilt feelings arising out of neglect of those tasks.)
R. C. SproulI believe in me, in my view of the world. I believe in my responsibility for my own destiny, guilt for my own sins, merit for my own good deeds, determination of my own life. I don't believe in miracles, I believe in hard work.
Philippa GregoryConditioned Awareness is where we live our lives in guilt over the past and anxiety over the future and never get to experience the present.
Russell TargWe can think about how we reduce the pain in paying. So, for example, credit cards are wonderful mechanisms to reduce the pain of paying. If you go to a restaurant and you are paying cash, you would feel much worse than if you were paying with credit card. Why? You know the price, there's no surprise, but if you're paying cash, you feel a bit more guilt.
Dan ArielyA culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest.
Jonathan KozolI really cannot get over the generosity of our Tibetian teacher. He said, "Don't punish yourself. You're going to be a student at a university in the north of England. You need to have your experiences and have your fun, and not judge yourself. Don't live in guilt and regret."
Benedict Cumberbatch