Some of Our Favorite Quotes
On Forgiveness and Compassion

“A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”

~ Abraham J. Heschel

 “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

~ Gautama Buddha

“If I have harmed anyone in any way either knowingly or unknowingly or through my own confusions I ask their forgiveness.
If anyone has harmed me in anyway either knowingly or unknowingly or through their own confusions I forgive them.
And if there is a situation I am not yet ready to forgive I forgive myself for that.
For all the ways that I harm myself, negate, doubt, belittle myself, judge or be unkind to myself through my own confusions I forgive myself.”


~ Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness

“Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control... to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare.”

~ Lance Morrow, The Chief: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

~ Dalai Lama

“In separateness lies the world's great misery, in compassion lies the world's true strength.”

~ Gautama Buddha

 “An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.” 


~ Kahlil Gibran

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.” 


~ Nelson Mandela

“But understand that the reason it is so difficult to extend forgiveness to those who have failed us is because we are unable to receive forgiveness for our own failures.”


~ Emily P. Freeman,
Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life

“Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.”


~ Aberjhani

 “Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.” 


~ Neil T. Anderson

“Few suffer more than those who refuse to forgive themselves.” 


~ Mike Norton, Fighting For Redemption: Hangambiiki

“I had to clear up my messy life. By letting go of the debris and filth, I have come to a deeper, more soulful beauty and clarity like an oasis in the desert. From that place of clarity, a vision of what I could have, what I could do, who I could be has emerged if I allow my heart to become a place of compassion, acceptance and forgiveness.” 


~ Sharon E. Rainey, Making a Pearl from the Grit of Life

“I knew that my heart and mind would always be tempted to feel anger--to find blame and hate. But I resolved that when the negative feelings came upon me, I wouldn't wait for them to grow or fester. I would always turn immediately to the Source of all true power: I would turn to God and let His love and forgiveness protect and save me.”


~ Immaculee Ilibagiza,
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

“If you or I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”

~ Deepak Chopra

“It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.” 


~ George Eliot

“Learn to forgive others so that you can release yourself from being held captive by the very negative thoughts around you.”


~ Stephen Richards

“Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. ”

~ Stephen Levine,
A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

“Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control... to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare.”


~ Lance Morrow, The Chief: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons

“The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves.  The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.”


~ Eric Hoffer

“The dew of compassion is a tear.”


~ Lord Byron

“The forgiving state of mind is a magnetic power for attracting good.”


~ Catherine Ponder

"Those who think forgiveness is a sign of weakness, haven't tried it."

~ Desmond Tutu

 "The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world."

~ Marianne Williamson

“It is lack of love for ourselves that inhibits our compassion toward others. If we make friends with ourselves, then there is no obstacle to opening our hearts and minds to others.”

~ Unknown

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.  Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

~ Dalai Lama

“[D]on’t cling to your self-righteous suffering, let it go. . . . Nothing is too good to be true, let yourself be forgiven. To the degree you insist that you must suffer, you insist on the suffering of others as well. ”


~ Stephen Levine,
A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

“For I hope my Friends will pardon me, when I declare, I know none of them without a Fault; and I should be sorry if I could imagine, I had any Friend who could not see mine. Forgiveness, of this Kind, we give and demand in Turn.” 


~ Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

"Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.” 


~ Dag Hammarskjöld

“Forgiveness is the key to the heart's shackles.” 


~ Richard Paul Evans, Miles to Go

“Forgiveness means letting go of the past.” 


~ Gerald G. Jampolsky

“Forgiveness spares the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.” 


~ Hannah More

“Forgiveness, which is the place that every story turns, the chance we give each other.”


~ Beth Kephart

“Great feuds often need very few words to resolve them. Disputes, even between nations, between peoples, can be set to rest with simple acts of contrition and corresponding forgiveness, can so often be shown to be based on nothing much other than pride and misunderstanding, and the forgetting of the humanity of the other.... ” 


~ Alexander McCall Smith, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

“Humanity must forgive 'Humanity,' for only then can we be Humane.” 


~ Ilyas Kassam

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


~ Nelson Mandela

“Sometimes a person needs to hear you forgive them so they can start to forgive themselves.” 


~ Rachel Gibson, Any Man of Mine

“There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true.” 


~ Stephen Levine
A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” 


~ Lewis B. Smedes
Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

“The more you are able to forgive then the more you are able to love.”


~ Stephen Richards
Forgiveness and Love Conquers All: Healing the Emotional Self