"Its easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it"
About this Quote
Forgiveness looks like a moral flex here, but Thomson is really staging a power imbalance. "Its easier for the generous to forgive" flatters the forgiver as big-hearted, almost effortless in their grace. Then the line turns the knife: "than for offence to ask it". The offender doesnt just feel regret; they have to perform humility under the gaze of the person they hurt. Asking is socially riskier than granting. You can forgive privately, even lazily. You can ask only by admitting fault out loud, lowering your status, and gambling that the other party wont use your vulnerability as leverage.
Calling the forgiving party "generous" is doing quiet rhetorical work. It frames forgiveness not as justice but as a gift. Gifts create obligations; they also position the giver as superior. So the quote isnt only sympathetic to the offender, its suspicious of how moral credit gets awarded. Society loves the magnanimous figure who "moves on". It has less patience for the messy, humiliating labor of apology: naming the harm, accepting consequences, risking rejection.
Thomsons era prized decorum and reputation, especially in polite society where a public slight could calcify into lifelong exclusion. Against that backdrop, the line reads like backstage advice: the real difficulty isnt repairing the relationship; its crossing the room and asking to be let back in. The subtext is modern, too. We celebrate public forgiveness stories, but the apology remains the harder, braver act because it hands control to someone else.
Calling the forgiving party "generous" is doing quiet rhetorical work. It frames forgiveness not as justice but as a gift. Gifts create obligations; they also position the giver as superior. So the quote isnt only sympathetic to the offender, its suspicious of how moral credit gets awarded. Society loves the magnanimous figure who "moves on". It has less patience for the messy, humiliating labor of apology: naming the harm, accepting consequences, risking rejection.
Thomsons era prized decorum and reputation, especially in polite society where a public slight could calcify into lifelong exclusion. Against that backdrop, the line reads like backstage advice: the real difficulty isnt repairing the relationship; its crossing the room and asking to be let back in. The subtext is modern, too. We celebrate public forgiveness stories, but the apology remains the harder, braver act because it hands control to someone else.
Quote Details
| Topic | Forgiveness |
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