Love Quote by William Arthur Ward

Ward’s line works because it refuses to treat forgiveness as a halo-polishing virtue. Calling it “a funny thing” sneaks in a wink: forgiveness isn’t clean, linear, or even especially dignified. It’s strange chemistry. You can decide to forgive and still feel bruised; you can release someone and still remember exactly where it hurt. That opening word “funny” primes the reader for a truth that’s emotionally accurate rather than morally tidy.

The sentence then lands on a body-level metaphor that does a lot of cultural work. “Warms the heart” is not about saintliness; it’s about self-regulation. Forgiveness becomes a way to restore circulation to a part of you that’s gone cold with vigilance. You’re not absolving the other person so much as reclaiming your own capacity for softness, connection, sleep. It’s self-preservation framed as generosity.

“Cools the sting” is the sharper half. Ward doesn’t promise the wound disappears, only that the burn reduces. The language suggests first aid, not amnesia: cooling a sting treats inflammation; it doesn’t rewrite the event. That’s the subtext modern readers recognize instinctively: forgiveness isn’t a verdict that what happened was acceptable. It’s a choice to stop letting the injury keep your nervous system hostage.

Context matters. As a mid-century American inspirational writer, Ward trafficked in compact moral psychology designed for everyday use: office walls, church bulletins, graduation cards. The simplicity is the strategy. It’s portable wisdom for a culture that prizes forward motion, offering forgiveness as an internal technology for moving on without pretending nothing hurt.