Values & Character: Forgiveness Quotes

Forgiveness is a steady practice that transforms hurt into clarity and resolve. These quotes highlight patience, empathy, and the courage to release resentment while honoring healthy boundaries. They invite reflection on personal growth, reconciliation, and the strength it takes to begin again. Use them to inspire compassion in daily choices, support healing conversations, and cultivate character grounded in accountability and grace. Whether rebuilding trust or choosing inner peace, the words here offer calm direction and practical encouragement toward renewal.

Similar topics:Gratitude Honesty & Integrity Humility Kindness Respect

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it"

Mark Twain, Author

Mark Twain

"Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody"

Peabo Bryson, Musician

Peabo Bryson

"The more a man knows, the more he forgives"

Catherine the Great, Royalty

Catherine the Great

"Forgiveness is setting the prisoner free, only to find out that the prisoner was me"

Corrie Ten Boom, Celebrity

Corrie Ten Boom

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"

Mark Twain, Author

Mark Twain

"A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act"

Mahatma Gandhi, Leader

Mahatma Gandhi

"Forgiveness is the final form of love"

Reinhold Niebuhr, Theologian

"Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart"

Corrie Ten Boom, Celebrity

Corrie Ten Boom

"If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart"

Jesse Jackson, Activist

Jesse Jackson

"The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise"

Alden Nowlan, Poet

Alden Nowlan

"I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one"

Henry Ward Beecher, Clergyman

"I have to ask Allah's forgiveness and not get angry, because they come to me out of love, and it's not fitting that I should turn to them in hatred"

Abdul Qadeer Khan, Scientist

Abdul Qadeer Khan

"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it"

Abraham Lincoln, President

Abraham Lincoln

"To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin"

Thomas Aquinas, Theologian

Thomas Aquinas

"Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too"

Will Smith, Actor

Will Smith

"Forget like a child any injury done by somebody immediately. Never keep it in the heart. It kindles hatred"

Swami Sivananda, Philosopher

Swami Sivananda

"Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it"

Rene Descartes, Mathematician

Rene Descartes

"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs"

Charlotte Bronte, Novelist

Charlotte Bronte

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future"

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist

Oscar Wilde

"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much"

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist

Oscar Wilde

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice"

Abraham Lincoln, President

Abraham Lincoln

"Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness"

Corrie Ten Boom, Celebrity

Corrie Ten Boom

"God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, No fishing"

Corrie Ten Boom, Celebrity

Corrie Ten Boom

"He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven"

George Herbert, Poet

George Herbert

"Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel"

William Penn, Leader

William Penn

"There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness"

Josh Billings, Comedian

Josh Billings

"Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet"

Kin Hubbard, Journalist

Kin Hubbard

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget"

Thomas Szasz, Psychologist

Thomas Szasz

"One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed"

Bernard Baruch, Businessman

Bernard Baruch

"For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?"

Bell Hooks, Critic

"When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive"

Alan Paton, Novelist

"If you forgive people enough you belong to them, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not squatter's rights of the heart"

James Hilton, Novelist

"How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all"

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Poet

"Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself"

George Bernard Shaw, Dramatist

George Bernard Shaw

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies"

Martin Luther King Jr., Minister

Martin Luther King Jr.

"A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Gilbert K. Chesterton

"The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong""

Sydney J. Harris, Journalist

Sydney J. Harris

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names"

John F. Kennedy, President

John F. Kennedy

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