Forgiveness is a complex and multifaceted concept that involves letting go of resentment, anger, or the desire for revenge toward someone who has wronged you. It is an intentional and voluntary act of pardoning or absolving someone for their actions or offenses. Forgiveness involves moving beyond feelings of hurt and allowing for the possibility of healing and reconciliation.
Here are some key aspects of what forgiveness means:
Release of negative emotions: Forgiveness involves releasing negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and bitterness towards the person who caused harm or hurt you. It doesn’t mean forgetting what happened or condoning the behavior, but rather freeing yourself from the emotional burden.
Empathy and understanding: Forgiveness often involves developing empathy and understanding towards the person who harmed you. It requires considering their perspective, motivations, and circumstances, which can help in finding compassion and granting forgiveness.
Acceptance and letting go: Forgiveness involves accepting that the past cannot be changed and letting go of the desire for revenge or punishment. It means relinquishing the need to seek retribution and instead choosing to move forward in a positive and constructive way.
Healing and personal growth: Forgiveness can be a transformative process that promotes personal healing and growth. By forgiving, you allow yourself to heal from emotional wounds and break free from the negative impact of the past. It opens up the possibility of building healthier relationships and finding inner peace.
Reconciliation (optional): Forgiveness can sometimes lead to reconciliation, where both parties involved work towards restoring trust and rebuilding the relationship. However, reconciliation is not always necessary or possible, especially in cases of severe or repeated harm.
It’s important to note that forgiveness is a personal choice and a process that varies from individual to individual. It may take time, effort, and self-reflection to truly forgive someone, and it’s not always easy. Ultimately, forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, as it allows you to move forward and live a more fulfilling and peaceful life.
Forgiveness Quotes
1. “Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.”
― Isaac Friedmann
2. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
3. “It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.”
― Steve Maraboli
4. “When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”
― Katherine Ponder
5. “Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.”
― J.K. Rowling
6. “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
7. “Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.”
― C.S. Lewis
8. “Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself.”
― Harriet Nelson
9. “Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim–letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.”
― C.R. Strahan
10. “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”
― C.S. Lewis
11. “Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.”
― Anne Lamott
12. “Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.”
― Criss Jami
13. “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.”
― Bryant H. McGill
14. “Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive.”
― Wm. Paul Young
15. “Life is an adventure in forgiveness.”
― Norman Cousins
16. “Always forgive, but never forget, else you will be a prisoner of your own hatred, and doomed to repeat your mistakes forever.”
― Wil Zeus
17. “I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, every day, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself “That’s just fine”. You have to forgive yourself so much, until you don’t even see those things anymore. Because that’s what love is like.”
― C. JoyBell C.
18. “Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”
― Roberto Assagioli
19. “Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you are.”
― Cherie Carter-Scott
20. “Can I be forgiven for all I’ve done to get here? I want to be. I can. I believe it.”
― Veronica Roth
21. “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.”
― Robert Quillen
22. “Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”
― Robert Jordan
23. “I want to be the kind of person who can do that. Move on and forgive people and be healthy and happy. It seems like an easy thing to do in my head. But it’s not so easy when you try it in real life.”
― Susane Colasanti
24. “Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”
― Hannah Arendt
25. “Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith
26. “He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.”
― George Herbert
27. “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
― Nelson Mandela
28. “Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”
― Emma Goldman
29. “What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.”
― Anonymous
30. “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
31. “Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.”
― Anonymous
32. “I could easily forgive his pride if he had not mortified mine.”
― Jane Austen
33. “Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.”
― Indira Gandhi
34. “As long as I am breathing, in my eyes, I am just beginning.”
― Criss Jami
35. “Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, because hate in your heart will consume you too.”
― Will Smith
36. “If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.”
― Robert Brault
37. “A life lived without forgiveness is a prison.”
― William Arthur Ward
38. “People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.”
― Anonymous
39. “Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.”
― Steve Maraboli
40. “Sincere forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don’t worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time-just like it does for you and me.”
― Sara Paddison
41. “To err is human, to forgive, divine.”
― Alexander Pope
42. “Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.”
― Alice Duer Miller
43. “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
― Marianne Williamson
44. “We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward.”
― Alison Croggon
45. “It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”
― William Blake
46. “I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn’t a final destination. You don’t one day get there and get to stay.”
― Deb Caletti
47. “The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.”
― Anonymous
48. “To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”
― G.K. Chesterton
49. “Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.”
― Marlene Dietrich
50. “One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
― Rita Mae Brown
51. “As long as you don’t forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy a rent-free space in your mind.”
― Isabelle Holland
52. “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
― Abraham Lincoln
53. “These are the few ways we can practice humility: To speak as little as possible of one’s self. To mind one’s own business. Not to want to manage other people’s affairs. To avoid curiosity. To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one’s dignity. To choose always the hardest.”
― Mother Teresa
54. “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
― Paul Boese
55. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. He hung on to his straps and shrugged. “Yesterday happens.”
― Rainbow Rowell
56. “Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.”
― Anonymous
57. “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen
58. “Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.”
― George MacDonald
59. “Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
― Corrie Ten Boom
60. “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”
― Gautama Buddha
61. “Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.”
― Cherie Carter-Scott
62. “People have to forgive. We don’t have to like them, we don’t have to be friends with them, we don’t have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. Because if we don’t we are tying rocks to our feet, too much for our wings to carry!”
― C. JoyBell C.
63. “If he can’t handle you at your worst then he does not deserve you at your best. Real love means seeing beyond the words spoken out of pain, and instead seeing a person’s soul.”
― Shannon L. Alder
64. “Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.”
― William Arthur Ward
65. “The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
― Anonymous
66. “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
― Thomas Szasz
67. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
― Lewis B. Smedes
68. “We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.”
― Ellen Goodman
69. “Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is, therefore, the means for correcting our misperceptions.”
― Gerald G. Jampolsky
70. “Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it.”
― Mason Cooley
71. “Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.”
― Rick Warren
72. “If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.”
― Anonymous
73. “Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”
― Marvin J. Ashton
74. “We are all on a lifelong journey and the core of its meaning, the terrible demand of its centrality is forgiving and being forgiven.”
― Martha Kilpatrick
75. “This is one of my favorites: “True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”
― Oprah Winfrey
76. “Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.”
― Frederick Buechner
77. “Only the brave know how to forgive. … A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.”
― Laurence Sterne
78. “What I cannot love, I overlook.”
― Anaïs Nin
79. “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde
80. “Sometimes you just have to regret things and move on.”
― Charlaine Harris
81. “If you do well, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do well anyway.”
― Anonymous
82. “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
― Nelson Mandela
83. “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”
― Robert Muller
84. “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.”
― William Shakespeare
85. “A broken friendship that is mended through forgiveness can be even stronger than it once was.”
― Stephen Richards
86. “People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.”
― Anonymous
87. “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”
― Anne Lamott
88. “Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe.”
― C. JoyBell C.
89. “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
― C.S. Lewis
90. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
91. “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
― Mark Twain
92. “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
― John F. Kennedy
93. “To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”
― Confucius
94. “When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.”
― Jon Krakauer
95. “A heart filled with anger has no room for love.”
― Joan Lunden
96. “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”
― Oprah Winfrey
97. “Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”
― Ted Chiang
98. “Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else; it’s something you do for yourself. To forgive is not to condone, it is to refuse to continue feeling bad about an injury.”
― Jim Beaver
99. “Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offence up against the offender. Forgiveness is an expression of love.”
― Gary Chapman
100. “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
― Paul Boose
101. “I think the first step is to understand that forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. Forgiveness liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself.”
― T.D. Jakes
102. “We ask for forgiveness. And we forgive others who ask us. In that way we can experience healing, healing in our souls.”
― Ed Dobsons
103. “Forgiveness is the best revenge.”
― Imam Ali
104. “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”
― C.S. Lewis
105. “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.”
― C.S. Lewis
106. “Certainly people make mistakes in their life. I’m no different, I’ve made mistakes. When people mess up, forgive them. When I mess up, I ask for forgiveness.”
― Michele Bachmann
107. “There is no peace without forgiveness.”
― Marianne Williamson
108. “Forgiveness is a reflection of loving yourself enough to move on.”
― Dr. Steve Maraboli
109. “One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed.” ― Bernard Baruch
110. “Forgiveness doesn’t make the other person right, it makes you free.”
― Stormie Omartian
111. “Disagreements don’t cause disunity, a lack of forgiveness does.”
― Loren Cunningham
112. “When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.”
― Bernard Meltzer
113. “I think we learn the most from imperfect relationships – things like forgiveness and compassion.”
― Andrea Thompson
114. “Forgiveness is the oil of relationships.”
― Josh McDowell
115. “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”
― Peter Ustinov
116. “Forgiveness is the economy of the heart… forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”
― Hannah More
117. “Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass.”
― Confucius
118. “If you choose to forgive someone who has wronged you rather than to hate that person, you shift the frequency of your Light.”
― Gary Zukav