"Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on"
About this Quote
Self-forgiveness is pitched here less as a soft virtue than as a productivity tool: stop bleeding time on guilt, reclaim momentum. Les Brown comes out of the American motivational-industrial complex, where emotional repair is framed as a prerequisite for performance. The line has the clean cadence of a coaching cue, not a therapist’s invitation to linger. “Forgive yourself” is the opening gate; “move on” is the destination. The message isn’t contemplation, it’s traction.
The intent is pragmatic: mistakes happen, and obsessing over them becomes a second failure. Brown’s audience is typically people who feel behind - economically, professionally, personally. In that context, shame is an unaffordable luxury. The subtext is almost managerial: treat your past errors like data, not an identity. “Faults and mistakes” covers both character (“faults”) and events (“mistakes”), collapsing the difference so you can stop litigating the specifics and start acting. It’s a deliberate simplification, because complexity can be a hiding place.
What makes the quote work is its gentle authority. It gives permission without argument. No moral lecture, no elaborate justification, just a two-step process that sounds doable in a moment of panic: absolve, proceed. It also carries an implicit critique of perfectionism culture - the idea that you must earn redemption through suffering. Brown offers a more American bargain: you don’t pay with self-punishment; you pay by getting back in the game.
The risk, of course, is that “move on” can become spiritual bypassing, a way to skip accountability. But in the motivational context Brown inhabits, the provocation is clear: you’re not meant to be your worst day’s permanent employee.
The intent is pragmatic: mistakes happen, and obsessing over them becomes a second failure. Brown’s audience is typically people who feel behind - economically, professionally, personally. In that context, shame is an unaffordable luxury. The subtext is almost managerial: treat your past errors like data, not an identity. “Faults and mistakes” covers both character (“faults”) and events (“mistakes”), collapsing the difference so you can stop litigating the specifics and start acting. It’s a deliberate simplification, because complexity can be a hiding place.
What makes the quote work is its gentle authority. It gives permission without argument. No moral lecture, no elaborate justification, just a two-step process that sounds doable in a moment of panic: absolve, proceed. It also carries an implicit critique of perfectionism culture - the idea that you must earn redemption through suffering. Brown offers a more American bargain: you don’t pay with self-punishment; you pay by getting back in the game.
The risk, of course, is that “move on” can become spiritual bypassing, a way to skip accountability. But in the motivational context Brown inhabits, the provocation is clear: you’re not meant to be your worst day’s permanent employee.
Quote Details
| Topic | Forgiveness |
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