Top 100 What Is Forgiveness Quotes
#1. What is forgiveness? An emotion? A coping mechanism? An element of deepest faith? A way for the heart and soul to combat the type of hate, anger, rage and a thirst for revenge that could ultimately consume a person? All of those and more?
Mike Barnicle
#3. We have to hear again and again who God is for us and what God has done on our behalf. We must free each other from bondage through our confession and forgiveness.
Nadia Bolz-Weber
#4. I know that many, if not most, women would have a problem with my acceptance of what happened with Lara.
The reality is I shall always be grateful to Lara for helping my husband when I could not do so. I couldn't have chosen a better or kinder surrogate.
Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker
#5. Telling the story, acknowledging what has happened and how you feel, is often a necessary part of forgiveness.
Sharon Salzberg
#6. Your dad's story is over. In six months or a year, this will be done for him. He won't be dealing with the consequences of what you choose to do now. You will. So you make this decision based on what you need.
Jason Schmidt
#7. Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.
Mary McCarthy
#8. When friends abandoned him, Paul asked God not to count their actions against them. He followed the example of Jesus, who prayed for the Father to forgive His persecutors. What's your response when friends let you down? Forgiveness is the choice that pleases God every time.
Charles Stanley
#9. I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.
Simone Weil
#10. When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.
Lewis B. Smedes
#11. But the trouble is that what we call "asking God's forgiveness" very often really consists in asking God to accept our excuses.
C.S. Lewis
#12. Forgiveness is healing - everything is energy - thoughts create - we are all connected - what you resist persists - true love never dies - the soul's immortality is the only true immortality -
Alyson Noel
#13. Often what prevents us from seeing beauty in the outside world is the fact that we fail to see beauty in ourselves and other people. Forgiveness is the key that can unlock this door for us.
Anthony J. Ciorra
#14. If I say, 'I forgive you,' I have implicitly said you have done something wrong to me. But what forgiveness is at its heart is both saying that justice has been violated and not letting that violation count against the offender.
Miroslav Volf
#15. I think one of the serious breakdowns in modern evangelism is this: it has offered too much for too little. What we do mostly is offer forgiveness. We need cleansing! There is no true conversion until a man takes up his cross.
Leonard Ravenhill
#16. Forgiveness is not a feeling - it's a decision we make because we want to do what's right before God. It's a quality decision that won't be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.
Joyce Meyer
#17. I'm beginning to get the feeling that confession is what we need in order to forgive ourselves.
Shane Kuhn
#18. Yes, this is what good is: to forgive evil. There is no other good.
Antonio Porchia
#19. I've always thought, if heaven is such a wonderful place, why is entering it so absurdly easy? Confess your sins, ask forgiveness - and that is all? No matter what your crimes?
Rick Yancey
#20. What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.
Marghanita Laski
#21. the fear of God" is increased by an experience of God's grace and forgiveness. What it describes is a loving, joyful awe and wonder before the greatness of God.
Timothy J. Keller
#22. Give plenty of what is given to you, And listen to pity's call. Don't think the little you give is great, And the much you get is small.
Phoebe Cary
#23. God's forgiveness is the only thing. And, well, I take full responsibility for the adultery. It was my fault and, you know, no matter what went on, the man has to take responsibility; and I do.
Jim Bakker
#24. but the older he got, the better he understood; forgiveness was an act done after the fact - a piece of the bad deeds future - and if you point the people's eyes to the future they might not see what is being done to hurt them in the present.
Yaa Gyasi
#25. The purpose of forgiveness is not to make sure that someone ends up changing into what you expect them to be, as this is dominance. The purpose is actually to make your own life better, more worthy and less stressful. Forgiveness reduces the hold that the wrongdoer has over you and empowers you.
Stephen Richards
#26. I define myself by helping others. This is what I do.
Those people who want me to abandon my husband are asking me to put myself first and to judge him. The poor man has been judged unfairly by others. Why would I abandon him in his greatest need?
Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker
#27. If we stay together, I'll have to forgive you over and over again, and if you're still in this, you'll have to forgive me over and over again too. So forgiveness isn't the point. What I really should have been trying to figure out is whether we were still good for each other or not
Veronica Roth
#28. What if everything you believe is wrong and you could still be loved and still be forgiven?
Cassandra Clare
#29. Oh, what peril attaches to sin willfully committed! For it is so difficult for man to bring himself to penance, and without penitence guilt remains and will ever remain, so long as man retains unchanged the will to sin, or is intent upon committing it.
Catherine Of Genoa
#30. Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#31. What Richard is talking about is instead admitting to the existence of negative thoughts, understanding where they came from and why they arrived, and then - with great forgiveness and fortitude - dismissing them.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#32. Have a policy of pre-emptive forgiveness. Refuse to get offended by petty things. Make a decision early on to cut the other person some slack in everyday life. Then you can take comfort in knowing they'll do it for you, as well. Accepting each other, flaws and all, is what love is all about.
Gaelen Foley
#34. 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 Hammarskjold
#35. Forgiveness is the most important thing. We all have to forgive what was done to us - the Irish people have to forgive. The African people. The Jewish people. We all have to forgive and understand the only way to stop the cycle of hate and abuse is not to allow yourself to get caught in it.
Sinead O'Connor
#36. We will find it increasingly difficult to believe that we've been set free from sin, from the law's power to condemn, and that God's smile is resting upon us if we continually give ourselves over to what we know we should avoid. Sin strips our faith, and it leads to ultimate deadness in our lives.
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick
#37. That's what love is all about, babe. Forgiveness.
Jaci Burton
#38. Forgetting is not at all what forgiveness means.
K.M. Shea
#39. Sometimes that is what forgiveness is anyway, a deep sigh
Nickolas Butler
#40. When you understand what love is you will understand that mercy and forgiveness feels better than any form of revenge.
Shannon L. Alder
#41. For forgiveness to work in your life, it has to be genuine. It has to come from the heart. When it does, it is so powerful that bitterness fades away and you are able to see the "gifts" in what has happened. I also think forgiveness is a kind of humility." -Winsome Campbell-Green
Winsome Campbell-Green
#42. When I finally get out of bed, the only thing I want to do is go straight to Amy and demand her forgiveness. Maybe we can at least go back to what we had before our fight, even if all we had was an awkward friendship punctuated by significant silences.
Beth Revis
#43. You've just got to have a sense of respect for the person you have children with. Anger doesn't help anybody. Ultimately you have to say forgiveness is important, and honoring what you had together is important. But it's easy to say and harder to do.
Nicole Kidman
#44. True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.
Desmond Tutu
#45. Forgiveness is greater than condemnation, and love stronger than hate. What is there left for us to contemplate?
-Reed Abbitt Moore-
Reed Abbitt Moore
#46. God makes it really clear that society and civilization is really held together by the glue of families ... When a man and a woman come together and say 'I do,' they are committing for a lifetime to love each other and to model what love is and what forgiveness is and what joy is to their kids.
Kirk Cameron
#47. We believe that the farm should be building 'forgiveness' into the ecosystem. What does that mean? That a more forgiving ecosystem is one that can better handle drought, flood, disease, pestilence.
Joel Salatin
#48. Forgiveness: You cannot afford to withhold forgiveness. Nothing will destroy your life more surely, for there is a great hidden grief in the denial of forgiveness. Your heart is so heavy from what you have not forgiven that you bear the offenses of another as if they were your own.
Glenda Green
#49. You've got to know what your 'thing' is, and you've got to call it a 'thing,' whether it's meanness, nastiness, un-forgiveness, arrogance, ego, resistance, rebelliousness or defiance. Everybody's got a 'thing,' and once you call your 'thing' a 'thing,' we can give it a place to be or dismiss it.
Iyanla Vanzant
#50. Forgiveness doesn't make wrong things right. It remembers that what is right far outshines what is wrong.
Alan Cohen
#51. Forgiveness is knowing and remembering what happened, but choosing to move beyond it.
Ashley Ormon
#52. No amount of debt restructuring, even debt forgiveness, will help the Greeks achieve real prosperity. What they need is not short-term relief but, rather, a long-term cure.
Edmund Phelps
#53. I will not ask you for forgiveness. What I have done is unforgivable. I was so lost in hatred and revenge. I never dreamed that I could love you so much. You stole what was left of my heart. And now I've lost you forever.
Elizabeth Rudnick
#54. Forgiving other people does not mean that they will get away with what they did to you, it means that You are set free from the pain they have caused you. Forgiveness is the hardest lesson we are here to learn to master, but it is possible with time and patience.
Jeanette Coron
#55. I want to inspire and encourage people and intrigue them to want to know what makes me tick, which is ultimately the love of God, the grace, peace and forgiveness of God that I'm so thankful & grateful for.
Christian Hosoi
#56. God doesn't care how well you can preach about forgiveness ... what He looks at is your behavior when presented the opportunity to practice it.
Steve Maraboli
#57. Forgiveness doesn't mean what they did is okay," he said softly. "It doesn't mean everything is magically better. It doesn't even mean you have to restore a relationship with that person or trust them again. Forgiveness simply means you let go of the burden that drags you down. It gives you peace.
Stephenia H. McGee
#58. Whether they are accepted or not isn't important. What is important is the act of apologizing, the act of admitting fault, the act of asking for forgiveness.
James Frey
#59. So in case someone left it out or forgot to mention it when they explained what it meant to be a Christian, let me be clear: There is no forgiveness without repentance. There is no salvation without surrender. There is no life without death. There is no believing without committing.
Kyle Idleman
#60. The thing to hold on to in forgiving is that most often the people who are hurting us do not know what they are doing. In fact it is fair to say that none of us knows the impact of our actions in relationships, at least for a lot of the time. We are all unaware of our power to hurt and to heal.
Carla L. Rueckert
#61. Forgiveness is not saying that the one who hurt you was right. Forgiveness is stating that God is faithful and he will do what is right.
Max Lucado
#62. Forgiveness is what makes adults different to children: children just forget, adults forgive.
Tim Relf
#63. I may not like everyone but love all. No one is worthy of occupying my heart. You scored a point, so what? Congratulations. You're forgiven!
Assegid Habtewold
#64. God's forgiveness doesn't come cheaply, nor is it a ticket to do what we jolly well please because there's a get out of jail free card at the end. Instead, it is the life-changing embrace of love that welcomes us when we've no reason to expect it. We cannot fail deeply enough for God to give us up.
Peggy Haymes
#65. If what you need, in order to feel good about yourself later on, is to show him some mercy - then show him mercy. If you need to tell him the truth, do that. But try to look at in terms of what you're going to be able to live with ten, twenty years down the line.
Jason Schmidt
#66. Do the forgiveness and carry on going forward. Leave the worrying to the other person. Eat what is on your plate and leave the rest to them.
Stephen Richards
#67. I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness,
Ann Patchett
#68. To stand in the presence of God, that is what the Gospel is. The Gospel is not primarily about forgiveness. It's not primarily about good feelings. It's not primarily about power. All those things are byproducts, sparks. It's primarily about the presence of God.
Timothy Keller
#69. Now one day, maybe I can forgive John Andersen for what he done to these trees, but I ain't gonna forget it. I figure forgiving is not letting something nag at you - rotting you out.
Mildred D. Taylor
#70. What I've learned over the years is that people shouldn't be defined by a single mistake. Everyone messes up," she said. "You have to forgive yourself and move one.
Gena Showalter
#71. What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you.
Jodi Picoult
#72. What we teach our children is that earth is your mother that provides; she's a giver. So, please first ask forgiveness from the mother earth before you step on to it and cause it pain.
Narendra Modi
#73. What is forgiven is usually well remembered.
Louis Dudek
#74. The real essentials of life - compassion, kindness, good will, forgiveness - are what is fundamental to living as a true human being.
Eknath Easwaran
#75. The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.
Charles Baxter
#76. It does not matter whether you are a theist or atheist, what matters is sincerity, forgiveness, and compassion.
Dalai Lama
#77. All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.
Richard Rohr
#78. Forgiveness is what we all need to forget the past, even if we
Chris Colfer
#79. Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
Lewis B. Smedes
#80. You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.
Ben Kingsley
#81. If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self.
Maya Angelou
#82. Forgiveness is a comfort, but it doesn't bring back what you lost
Jonathan Tropper
#83. I need to be broken apart and put back into a different shape by that merging of things human and divine, which is really screwing up and receiving grace and love and forgiveness rather than receiving what I really deserve. I
Nadia Bolz-Weber
#84. Asking for forgiveness from others in a scriptural manner involves acknowledging that you have sinned against them and that you desire mercy and pardon (not to be given what you deserve). Asking for forgiveness is vital for reconciliation and may lead to the difference in the relationship.
John C. Broger
#85. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We feel morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension.
Vaclav Havel
#86. There is no inconsistency in God's commanding us not to take upon ourselves what belongs to Him alone. For to execute vengeance belongs to none but Him who is Lord of all; for when the powers of the world rightly accomplish this end, God himself does it who appointed them for the purpose.
Anselm Of Canterbury
#87. Forgiveness is discovering that what you thought happened, didn't.
Byron Katie
#88. Forgiveness is what sets us free ... Forgiveness= freedom
Shelley Hitz
#89. Most people like it when the pastor says, "family is priority." What they don't like very much is when the pastor actually chooses his own family as the priority over them.
Carlos A. Rodriguez
#90. Mercy is compassion, kindness, empathy, forgiveness. While grace might be described as blessings and favor from God that we do not necessarily deserve, mercy represents not receiving what we do deserve because of the patience, love, and atonement of the Master.
Brent L. Top
#91. I can't make you forgive me. I don't deserve your forgiveness. I can't change the past. All I can do is give you what you want. If this is what you want, I'll walk away, Blaire. It'll kill me but I'll do it.
Abbi Glines
#92. To be absolved, especially if you commit a crime, there is no absolution, you must pay. But for forgiveness, with God or nature, you have to accept what you've done.
Gael Garcia Bernal
#93. We are often so convinced that we are so hurt and in pain, so much so that we opt not to forgive. Yet, as a consequence, that is what will make you weak!
Stephen Richards
#94. ...I feel pity that she will never fully understand what it is to be loved and forgiven, then loved even more." Pastel Orphans
Gemma Liviero
#95. Each life is unique. But for all, repentance will surely include passing through the portal of humble prayer. Our Father in Heaven can allow us to feel fully the conviction of our sins. He knows the depths of our remorse. He can then direct what we must do to qualify for forgiveness.
Henry B. Eyring
#96. Tabasco sauce is to bachelor cooking what forgiveness is to sin.
P. J. O'Rourke
#97. What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God - we change in the very act of rebellion - and there is no guarantee we will ever come back. You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?
Philip Yancey
#98. Everyone believes in sin, the people who charge their peers with political incorrectness and the people who regard political correctness as the bogey of a little mind. What everyone does not believe in, as nearly as I can tell, is forgiveness.
Garret Keizer
#99. It may not be an easy thing to live in sweet fellowship with all those with whom we come in contact; but that is what the grace of God is given to us for.
D.L. Moody
#100. Salvation is far more than merely the forgiveness of sins. It includes the whole sweep of God's purpose to redeem and restore humankind, and indeed all creation. What we claim for the Bible is that it unfolds God's total plan.
John R.W. Stott
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