Sunday, November 14, 2010

Forgiveness: the most profound healing power...

I came across this website that had famous quotes on forgiveness; I posted my favorites - I'm forever fascinated by the Amish, the tragedy they faced in 2006 when they experienced an open fire in a school house.  This senseless incident generated stories and articles about the depth of their forgiveness ~
So inspiring is this NPR article, 1 year after the shooting incident:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14900930
  • The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.-- Mahatma Gandhi
  • To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.—Unknown
  • Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were. --Cherie Carter-Scott
  • The offender never pardons. --George Herbert
  • He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.--George Herbert
  • Resentment is like a glass of poison that a man drinks; then he sits down and waits for his enemy to die.—Unknown
  • Forgiveness is giving up the possibility of a better past. --Unknown
  • Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting. --William A. Ward
  • You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. --Lewis B. Smedes
  • What we forgive too freely doesn't stay forgiven. --Mignon McLaughlin
  • It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. --William Blake:
  • We frequently forgive those who bore us, but cannot forgive those whom we bore. –Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
  • It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. --Jessamyn West
  • Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever. --Lord Chesterfield
  • Don't tell friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you. --Logan Pearsall Smith
  • Without deep humility, true forgiveness is impossible…and will never happen. --Martha Kilpatrick
  • Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me. --Anonymous
  • Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury. --E. H. Chapin
  • Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?-- Abraham Lincoln
  • There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.-- Josh Billings
  • Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.-- Oscar Wilde
  • Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. --Jean Paul Richter
  • Yes, this is what good is: to forgive evil. There is no other good. --Antonio Porchia
  • A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. --Robert Quillen
  • Forgiveness is the final form of love. --Reinhold Niebuhr
  • One forgives to the degree that one loves. --Francois de La Rochefoucauld
  • 'Tis the most tender part of love, each other to forgive. --John Sheffield
  • Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness. --H. Jackson Brown
  • Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life. --George MacDonald
  • It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited. Louis B. Smedes
  • To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. Louis B. Smedes

2 comments:

preppyplayer said...

All great words of wisdom. i have been held prisoner by a grudge and there is nothing more liberating than forgiveness, a true release.

OHN said...

Yikes. I need to print these and read them as a mantra. There is something missing in my makeup that allows me to fully forgive. Usually, it is because I don't understand how the person was able to do/say whatever it was. I think I need to practice my understanding before I can do the forgiving.