Useful Forgiveness Quotes

Useful Forgiveness Coaching Quotes

Accusations are useless.

Dominique de Villepin

I say, let no one rob me of a single day who isn't going to make a full return on the loss.

Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind

If you are pained by external things, it is not that they pain you, but your own judgment of them; and it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation

How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course.

Seneca

It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret it's happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.

Marcus Aurelius

Another person will not hurt you without your cooperation. You are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.

Epictetus

Keep in mind that it isn't the one who has it in for you and takes a swipe that harms you, but rather the harm comes from your own belief about the abuse. So when someone arouses your anger, know that it's really your own opinion fueling it. Instead, make it your first response not to be carried away by such impressions, for with time and distance self-mastery is more easily achieved.

Epictetus

Today, Creator, grant me the courage and the will to forgive the people I love the most. Help me to forgive every injustice I feel in my mind, and to love other people unconditionally. I know the only way to heal all the pain in my heart is through forgiveness.

Today, Creator, strengthen my will to forgive everyone who has hurt me, even if I believe the offense is unforgivable. I know that forgiveness is an act of self-love. Help me to love myself so much that I forgive every offense. Let me choose forgiveness because I don't want to suffer every time I remember the offense.

Today, Creator, help me to heal all the guilt in my heart by accepting the forgiveness of everyone I have hurt in my life. Help me to sincerely recognize the mistakes I have made out of ignorance, and give me the wisdom and determination to refrain from making the same mistakes. I know that love and forgiveness will transform every relationship in the most positive way.

Thank you, Creator, for giving me the capacity to love and forgive. Today I open my heart to love and forgiveness, so that I can share my love without fear. Today I will enjoy a reunion with the people I love the most. Amen.

Don Miguel Ruiz, Prayers, A Communion with our Creator

Show respect to people who don't even deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.

Dave Willis

So other people hurt me? That's their problem. Their character and actions are not mine.

Marcus Aurelius

When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous... Although moralists are scandalized by the fortunes amassed by the revolutionaries [ruling in Mexico], they have failed to observe that this material flowering has a verbal parallel; oratory has become the favorite literary genre of the prosperous... and alongside oratory, with its plastic flowers, there is the barbarous syntax in many of our newspapers, the foolishness of language on loudspeakers and the radio, the loathsome vulgarities of advertising -- all that asphyxiating rhetoric.

Octavio Paz

No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We're tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.

Seneca, On the Brevity of Life

How many times do we pay for one mistake? The answer is thousands of times. The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for the same mistake. The rest of the animals pay once for every mistake they make. But not us. We have a powerful memory. We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty, and we punish ourselves. If justice exists, then that was enough; we don't need to do it again. But every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again, and again, and again. If we have a wife or husband he or she also reminds us of the mistake, so we can judge ourselves again, punish ourselves again, and find ourselves guilty again. Is this fair?

Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.

The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.

The younger monk couldn't believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.

Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

Zen proverb

True justice is paying only once for each mistake. True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake.

Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick or, the Whale

The recipe is not the cake.

Proverb

When you are on the way to court with your accuser, try to settle the matter before you get there. Otherwise, your accuser may drag you before the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, who will throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

Jesus, Bible, Luke 12:58

"If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off."

... Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Jesus, Bible, Matthew 18:12-13, 21-22