Forgiving Someone Quotes & Sayings

But sometimes it's easier to love someone who has flaws you can forgive in return for their forgiving yours. — Mark Lawrence

Nothing stirs God's heart more than a humble heart and a merciful spirit. God responds to mercy, because it is through compassion that we fully come to know Him. This is the defining quality of a true follower of Christ. We are never closer to the heart of God than when we are forgiving someone. And we are never farther from it than when we are holding a grudge. — Nicky Cruz

A high school student wrote to ask, "What was the greatest event in American history?" I can't say. However, I suspect that like so many "great" events, it was something very simple and very quiet with little or no fanfare (such as someone forgiving someone else for a deep hurt that eventually changed the course of history). The really important "great" things are never center stage of life's dramas; they're always "in the wings". That's why it's so essential for us to be mindful of the humble and the deep rather than the flashy and the superficial. — Fred Rogers

Forgiving someone may cost you your pride, but not forgiving them will cost you your freedom. — Charles F. Glassman

I forgive everyone. There's no reason to hold anything against someone. Revenge is over with. — Jose Aldo

Forgiving someone doesn't mean pretending nothing happened. Rather, it means releasing the burden of anger and obsession so you can move on with your life. — Charles F. Glassman

I don't know how I would have gotten through this life without someone to really love me and I love them, him, and them [family]. It's forgiving. Love is very forgiving to one another and your friends and it's a powerful, powerful emotion and it's my favorite emotion in life. Now, write that down and read it and remember it. — Eva Marie Saint

Enduring and forgiving are two different things. You must not forgive the cruelty of this world. It's our duty as human beings to be angry at injustice. But we must also endure it. Because someone must sever this chain of hatred. — Hiromu Arakawa

Pops gave him a cool stare that settled Tom down - a thing not always easy to do. "Son, do you know what history is?"
"Uh ... stuff that happened in the past?"
"Nope," he said, trying on his canvas change-belt. "History is the collective and ancestral shit of the human race, a great big and ever growing pile of crap. Right now, we're standin at the top of it, but pretty soon we'll be buried under the doodoo of generations yet to come. That's why your folks' clothes look so funny in old photographs, to name but a single example. And, as someone who's destined to buried beneath the shit of your children and grandchildren, I think you should be just a leetle more forgiving. — Stephen King

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

How can you still love me after everything I've done to you?" "How can I not? You're the fucking love of my life. You don't stop loving someone just because they've hurt you. Yes, what you did hurt me, but I gain nothing if I stay angry with you. But I might gain everything by forgiving you. You're my everything. I just want you back. — Cassia Leo

So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There's no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn't work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn't say, 'Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.' In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That's what perfect justice is." I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. "But I thought God is forgiving. You're implying that because of justice, God can't forgive." "God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I'm saying is that God's desire to forgive doesn't negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God's justice demands it. — David Gregory

It came to me more as a whisper of suggestion than the fundamental adage that it is - if this is not biblical, I shall always believe it should be - that all of us need someone who loves us enough to forgive us despite the history. — Ivan Doig

one text can change the whole dynamic of a budding relationship. In a certain context, even just saying something as innocuous as "Hey, let's hang out sometime" or spelling errors or punctuation choices can irritate someone. When I spoke with Sherry Turkle about this, she said that texting, unlike an in-person conversation, is not a forgiving medium for mistakes. — Aziz Ansari

No circumstance in the world can ever prevent us from believing in God, from placing all our trust in him, from loving him with our whole heart, or from loving our neighbor. Faith, hope, and charity are absolutely free, because if they are rooted in us deeply enough, they are able to draw strength from whatever opposes them! If someone sought to prevent us from believing by persecuting us, we always would retain the option of forgiving our enemies and transforming the situation of oppression into one of greater love. If someone tried to silence our faith by killing us, our deaths would be the best possible proclamation of our faith! Love, and only love, can overcome evil by good and draw good out of evil. — Jacques Philippe

This means, for example, that a woman who knew that her husband occasionally smoked pot could have her car forfeited to the government because she allowed him to use her car. Because the "car" was guilty of transporting someone who had broken a drug law at some time, she could legally lose her only form of transportation, even though she herself committed no crime. Indeed, women who are involved in some relationship with men accused of drug crimes, typically husbands or boyfriends, are among the most frequent claimants in forfeiture proceedings.59 Courts have not been forgiving of women in these circumstances, frequently concluding that "the nature and circumstances of the marital relationship may give rise to an inference of knowledge by the spouse claiming innocent ownership. — Michelle Alexander

All we have to do is to receive what we are given ... We are given the naturalness to love someone, to be calm in crisis, to ignore self-defeating suggestions, to be pleasant, forgiving, tender, helpful, unworried, brave, energetic. — Vernon Howard

Love was actions more than words. And not just easy actions like hugs and kisses. It was hard ones, like sticking by someone in bad times, not just in good. It was working for them, even when you were tired. It was putting their needs first, even before your own. It was taking care of them when they were sick. It was forgiving them when they disappointed you. It was protecting them and teaching them. — Gayle Rosengren

Staying mad is easy. Forgiving someone takes guts. — Jillian Dodd

It 's possible to forgive someone a great deal if he makes you laugh. — Caroline Llewellyn

Not forgiving someone hurts you worse than it hurts him ... even if he doesn't deserve to be forgiven ... Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one who put it there. — Mercedes Lackey

But forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. — Jodi Picoult

It's not always enough to be forgiven by someone, in most cases we have to forgive ourselves first. — Paulo Coelho

Pause and remember - It is never too late to begin again, to forgive someone, to have a dream, to meet someone or to love yourself. It is never too late! — Jennifer Young

Forty years ago, we were on the tail of the Front Page era. There was a different point of view. Reporters and editors were more forgiving of public people. They didn't think they had to stick someone in jail to make a career. — Mike Royko

The choice to follow love through to its completion is the choice to seek completion within ourselves. The point at which we shut down on others is the point at which we shut down on life. We heal as we heal others, and we heal others by extending our perceptions past their weaknesses. Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who that person is. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is. Forgiving others is the only way to forgive ourselves, and forgiveness is our greatest need. — Marianne Williamson

If we can't forget, how can we forgive? I believe that forgiving can't be done by willpower alone. I can will myself to write out my own memories and feelings. I can will myself to imagine onto the page how someone else may have felt. I can will myself to research someone else's life in order to better understand what happened. But I don't think I can forgive by simply willing to forgive. Forgiving happens to us when our hearts are ready. Sometimes it takes the form of working on our own story until quietly, often surprisingly, we simply let go of the hurt. Sometimes forgiving makes it possible to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship and begin again. Sometimes it means letting a relationship go. We can't forgive through willpower. What we can do is work toward readiness of heart. Writing as a spiritual practice can be that kind of work.
When our heart is ready, we often don't even know it until forgiveness happens within us. It is a gift. — Pat Schneider

We cannot repent for someone else. But we can forgive someone else, refusing to hold hostage those whom the Lord seeks to set free! — Neal A. Maxwell

Only through forgiving can we understand that there is nothing and no one to forgive. And that we too, if we have hurt someone, have been for them, nothing more than an instrument of Love in the same way they have been for us. In the Oneness there is no separation, no judgment, and everything happens in Divine Perfection. — Human Angels

Forgiving someone else doesn't give them a free pass. It gives you a free pass to move on. — Charles F. Glassman

To hurt someone you know will forgive you is the unkindiest thing of all. — Robert Breault

Sometimes, when someone keeps forgiving someone else, it becomes too much. — Brodi Ashton

Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one to put it there. — Mercedes Lackey

You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything ... We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run. — Lewis B. Smedes

If Jesus forgave those who nailed Him to the cross, and if God forgives you and me, how can you withhold your forgiveness from someone else? — Anne Graham Lotz

When it comes to the crusty behavior of some people, give them the benefit of the doubt. They may be drowning right before your eyes, but you can't see it. And you'd never ask someone to drown with a smile on his face. — Richelle E. Goodrich

That's what forgiving was: seeing someone for what they were, flaws and all, not what you wanted them to be, not what they should have been. — B.G. Harlen

It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her. — Timothy Keller

I am certain that people never forgive because they believe they have an obligation to do it or because someone told them to do it. Forgiveness has to come from inside as a desire of the heart. Wanting to is the steam that pushes the forgiving engine. — Lewis B. Smedes

A while ago?" Anaxantis asked. "Yes, he raped me a while ago. Exactly nine months and two days ago. What's that? Nine months or nine minutes. It's the same. And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that? — Andrew Ashling

The truth is, forgiving is a rather simple concept to grasp. It is often imagined that when you forgive, you have to reconcile with someone and yet this is a larger team in which forgiveness is just a player. — Stephen Richards

Forgiving someone only absolves you from holding them accountable. When that person has not truly met that accountability, it is a weakness on your end, Miss Rachael. To forgive when they are unrepentant only relieves you of that responsibility. — Deidre Huesmann

If someone busted into your house and robbed you, would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran? Of course not. So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda? — Adam McKay

Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future. — Jodi Picoult

There is nothing more humiliating than loving someone so much that you forgive the infidelities. — Jerry Hall

But I don't think any parent can expect to escape this life without disappointing his child at some point. And the same could be said the other way around. We all of us fall short now and again, and disappoint someone dear to us, or ourselves. Thankfully, my parents have always been the forgiving sort. — Julie Klassen

Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting, nor does it mean approving of, what someone did. It just means that you're letting go of the anger toward that person. — Frank Sonnenberg

Forgiving someone does not mean you condone their behavior. The act of forgiveness takes place in your own mind. It really has nothing to do with the other person. The reality of true forgiveness lies in setting ourselves free from holding on to the pain. It is simply an act of releasing yourself from the negative energy. — Louise Hay

You know, Sage, Jesus didn't tell us to forgive everyone. He said turn the other cheek, but only if you the one who was hit. Even the Lord's Prayer says it loud and clear: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not others. What Jesus challenges us to do is to let go of the wrong done to you personally, not the wrong done to someone else. But most Christians incorrectly assume that this means that being a good christian means forgiving all sins, and the sinners. — Jodi Picoult

There comes a day when, for someone who has persecuted us, we feel only indifference, a weariness at his stupidity. Then we forgive him. — Cesare Pavese

Forgiveness is something that we are often asked to grant and very few of us ever have the roadmap of how to get from the pain that we have experienced to being able to forgive someone. — Desmond Tutu

Whether we're forgiving our parents or someone else or ourselves, the laws of mind remain the same. As we love, we shall be released from pain and as we deny love, we shall remain in pain. Each of us have different fears and different manifestations of fear, but all of us are saved by the same technique: The call to God to save our lives by salvaging our minds. 'Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For love is the kingdom and love is the glory and love is the power, forever and forever. — Marianne Williamson

How can you not forgive someone who made you a better person? — Piolo Pascual

Psychopaths play on the fact that most of us are trusting and forgiving people. The warning signs are always there; it's just difficult to see them because once we trust someone, the friendship becomes a blinder. - The Psychopath Next Door. — Mercy Cortez

Don't drag anchors of unforgiveness into your relationships. Forgive who you need to forgive. Reach out to someone who may be able to help you work this through. Don't drag around those things that "encumber" you. — Lee Ezell

Here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn't mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart - every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) — C.S. Lewis

Sometime, it's easier to love someone with flaws you can forgive in return for them forgiving yours. — Mark Lawrence

Forgiving someone isn't just about doing good to another. It's also about healing a scar in your own heart. — Nouman Ali Khan

The more difficult it is to forgive someone the greater the opportunity for spiritual growth. — Gabrielle Bernstein

Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is actually a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them. — Colleen Hoover

Forgiving is easier when we understand that forgiving someone else means that we are freeing ourselves of an unnecessary burden. — Donna Goddard

Eddis stared at him for a long time, knowing that forgiving someone because you have to is not forgiving him at all. — Megan Whalen Turner

I've learned ... That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you ... More — Andy Rooney

If any writer in this country has collected as fine and passionate a group of readers as I have, they're fortunate and lucky beyond anyone's imagination. It remains a shock to me that I've had a successful writing career. Not someone like me; Lord, there were too many forces working against me, too many dark currents pushing against me, but it somehow worked. Though I wish I'd written a lot more, been bolder with my talent, more forgiving of my weaknesses, I've managed to draw a magic audience into my circle. They come to my signings to tell me stories, their stories. The ones that have hurt them and made their nights long and their lives harder. — Pat Conroy

If someone lies to you, be quick to forgive & they'll be more apt
to tell you the truth. — Marshall Sylver

People would rather debate doctrine or beliefs or tradition or interpretation than actually do what Jesus said. It's not rocket science. Just go do it. Practice loving a difficult person or try forgiving someone. Give away some money. Tell someone thank you. Encourage a friend. Bless an enemy. Say, "I'm sorry." Worship God. You already know more than you need to know. — John Ortberg

Now when I hear about someone's illness, no matter what dire their predicament seems to be, I know that if they're willing to do the mental work of releasing and forgiving, almost anything can be healed. The word incurable, which is so frightening to so many people, really only means that the particular condition cannot be cured by 'outer' methods and that we must go within to effect the healing. The condition came from nothing and will go back to nothing. — Louise Hay

Forgiveness doesn't work that way. You may want to forgive, but you can't do it yet. Forgiving someone can take weeks, months, years. Sometimes it takes a lifetime. — Anne Bishop

Imogenia's temper flared. "I was to become queen when you died, Father! He will pay," she snarled. "Honey," the king objected, "I'm not going to say I understand how you feel, but not forgiving someone hurts you, not the one you hate. — L.R.W. Lee

The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone. — Stephen Richards

Forgiving someone who hurt you is hard as hell to actually do, but in the end, it brings you the kind of relief you need to move on. Like when you close a book, so you can open up a new one. — Abi Ketner

We can make choices, but we can be vulnerable; we can do the wrong thing, but the wrong thing for all the right reasons. I think it [life] is basically about forgiveness, and not about someone else forgiving you, but you forgiving yourself. I think we all want a lot of that. — Kelli O'Hara

As I get older I've come to realize that the best way to "get even" with someone is to forgive - and then forget. — Mark Hart

The forgiving heart is capable of anything.
I believe that deeply.
And that's where in terms of becoming an empowered individual ...
when you get to the point where you realize you can look at someone and say
I love myself enough -
not in a schmaltzy garbage sense, Hallmark stuff,
I'm talking respect myself -
I respect my life-force enough to no longer waste it. — Caroline Myss

Three months ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that if you really loved someone, you'd let them go. But now I look at you, and I dreamed about Maggie, and I see that I've been wrong. If you really love someone, Allie, I think you have to take them back. — Jodi Picoult

There is someone that I love even though I don't approve of what he does. There is someone I accept though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me. There is someone I forgive though he hurts the people I love the most. That person is ... me. — C.S. Lewis

Forgiving someone never alters what they did. That never changes."

(Bitter Roots) — Karin Kaufman

None of us wants to admit that we hate someone ... When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate. — Lewis B. Smedes

To forgive someone means to take away the power this person has over you. — Marshall Sylver

Many people hold onto a grudge because it offers the illusion of power and a perverse feeling of security. But in fact, we are held hostage by our anger. It is never too late to forgive. But you can forgive too soon. I am especially wary of what I call "saintly forgiveness." Premature forgiveness is common among people who avoid conflict. They're afraid of their own anger and the anger of others. But their forgiveness is false. Their anger goes underground. I define forgiving as letting someone back into your heart. This returns us to a loving state -- and not merely within the relationship -- we feel good about ourselves and the world. True forgiveness isn't easy, but it transforms us significantly. To forgive is to love and to feel worthy of love. In that sense, it is always worthwhile. — Robert Karen

Forgiveness is not a gift you give someone else, forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. — Donald L. Hicks

Forgiving someone who has wronged you is actually a selfish act rather than a selfless one. — Robin S. Sharma

Did you ever notice how easy it is to forgive a person any number of faults for one endearing characteristic, for a certain style, or some commitment to life - while someone with many good qualities is insupportable for a single defect if it happens to be a boring one? — Shirley Hazzard