Good Forgiveness Quotes & Sayings

Higher states of consciousness correlate strongly with attributes like compassion, forgiveness, generosity and kindness. The more one is self-aware and other-aware, and the greater one's connection with the spiritual, the more likely one will be a force for good in our world. — Philip Chard

I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time ... I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better. — Desmond Tutu

To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality. — Brene Brown

The Cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable - it is wrong. Jesus' death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid - God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born - God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering. — Timothy Keller

It is certainly a good thing always to forgive with generosity, but it is no doubt just never to forget the wrongs received: they belong to the route that leads to inner maturity. — Fausto Cercignani

Forgive because it makes you feel good. — Deepak Chopra

[D]on't cling to your self-righteous suffering, let it go ... Nothing is too good to be true, let yourself be forgiven. To the degree you insist that you must suffer, you insist on the suffering of others as well. (90) — Stephen Levine

We have to remember, when we forgive we're not doing it just for the other person, we're doing it for our own good. When we hold on to unforgiveness and we live with grudges in our hearts, all we're doing is building walls of separation. — Joel Osteen

But what I am beginning to suspect is that most guilty people reject the possibility of forgiveness not because it is too good to believe, but because they fear the responsibility forgiveness entails. It's hell to be guilty, but its worse to be responsible. — William Sloane Coffin

It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it ... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
[Letter to William Short, 13 April 1820] — Thomas Jefferson

you will never EVER regret choosing to be KIND. Every day we are given the opportunity to be kind or mean. It's amazing the times I have chosen to be kind to a stranger, and then had another chance in the future to interact with them again. What if the situation was me being mean, people have good memories, and could remember your face and actions. It's up to you to decide what you want to be remembered for. Choose love, and choose forgiveness you won't regret it. — Tina Mitchell

Jesus crossed national, racial, and economic barriers to spread his Good News. Jesus' message of faith and forgiveness is for the whole world - not just our church, neighborhood, or nation. We must reach out beyond our own people and needs to fulfill the worldwide vision of Jesus Christ so that people everywhere may hear this great message and be saved from sin and death. — Anonymous

Murderers don't get forgiven just because we promise to be good from now on. We have to earn our way back. One hundred is the price. One hundred lives for each we took. That seems fair. That's how we get whole again and that's our work, from now until as long as it takes. — Bill Willingham

Sorry is a question that begs forgiveness, because the metronome of a good heart won't settle until things are set right and true. — Craig Silvey

How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment! There, we can see God's reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken. — Pope Francis

I'm a good enough person to forgive you, and you should be a good enough person to not do it again. — Annette Thomas

I am making amends and seeking forgiveness. My only hope is that some good can come out of my situation. — Jayson Blair

Forgiveness isn't simply an option or a good idea; it is mandatory for our restorative process. — Grace Gealey

The greatest conduct is love in action. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When you feel angry or frustrated at a brother for using a particular defense -- being controlling or whatever it is -- you are failing to forgive yourself for the very same attempt; you still believe that the defense has a reality. You are seeing it out there but when you start to pull it back to your mind, you start to see the control in yourself. The guilt from transferring it from one seeming person/body to another seeming person/body is enormous. Instead of blaming your brother, the blame gets turned onto your own seeming body, but it is still the same error. We have to see that I am mind; this identity that I took off of my brother but still saw in myself is also just a construct in my mind. Otherwise, what good is the transfer? — David Hoffmeister

Speaking from personal experience, I think that losing the sense of free will has only improved my ethics - by increasing my feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and diminishing my sense of entitlement to the fruits of my own good luck. Is — Sam Harris

We are creators, and yet we naively play the role of "the created." We see ourselves as helpless sheep buffeted around by the God who made us. We kneel like frightened children, begging for help, for forgiveness, for good luck. But once we realize that we are truly created in the Creator's image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be Creators. When we understand this fact, the doors will burst wide open for human potential. — Dan Brown

WE GOT to my work, and I let the Kid go with a list while I went to the office to check the schedule for the coming week. I was off tomorrow and didnt have to be in till the afternoon of the day after. That was good. It either left me with enough time to grovel on my knees for forgiveness from Otter, which would hopefully lead to me needing to be on my knees for other reasons, or it would give me enough time to find the nearest bridge to jump off of when he rejected me. — T.J. Klune

The best thing to give
your enemy is forgiveness;
to an oponent, tolerance;
to a friend, your heart;
to your child, a good example;
to your father, deference;
to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you;
to your self, respect;
to all men charity. — Swami Sivananda Radha

As hard as I fought to hold on to my anger, to continue to hate my dad, the tugging of the good memories eventually found an inroad to my heart. No one is all good or all bad. The reality that my father would forever be a part of me was inescapable. A big part of making peace with myself was rediscovering the good in him and claiming that as my inheritance. The act of forgiving wasn't like flipping a switch - forgiven . . . unforgiven . . . forgiven . . . unforgiven . . . forgiven. — Mahtob Mahmoody

He nods, looking through the pictures on the screen on the back of his camera. Some relationships can only exist as memories. But unlike ephemeral digital images that can be sorted and deleted, we can't erase the past. We have to learn to live with all the images that are stored in love's archive, memories tagged good and bad. No Photoshopping. Accept the negative before moving forward. — Shannon Mullen

place and I could handle anything he threw at me. Will Seeking Forgiveness I had to get a grip. I knew Ruth and Andrew were in good hands, but I wanted to be with them. I was miserable and lonely. Granddad Andrew advised me to think about what I was looking for and if I found it in Sara. Well, I thought about it and she was the one. I loved everything about her. Sara challenged me and kept me on my toes. She was a know-it-all and could debate me on — Pamela K. Marshall

God is a good horseman. He waits while we circle the fences of our lives - whatever they are, whether it be a bad childhood, or a destructive habit, family problems, an addiction, a personal tragedy, an inability to forgive someone else or to allow ourselves to ask forgiveness, or believe we deserve it. The Good Horseman waits, and each time we turn and look at Him, He stretches out His hand, slow and quiet, until finally, sooner or later, we reach for it, and we come to the center with Him, and find that peace was waiting there all along. — Lisa Wingate

Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning. — Erwin Raphael McManus

If we stay together, I'll have to forgive you over and over again, and if you're still in this, you'll have to forgive me over and over again too. So forgiveness isn't the point. What I really should have been trying to figure out is whether we were still good for each other or not — Veronica Roth

What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise? - William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower — Jodi Picoult

Our enemies make us strong, Miss Muffet, not our friends. Our friends will lie to us, tell us what we need to hear. Forgive us. We must keep a few good enemies on hand, always, to keep us sharp and teach us never to do anything that needs forgiveness. — Ann Rinaldi

I did a lot of things that I regretted and I certainly paid for my mistakes. You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right, by other people as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. — Mark Wahlberg

Papa's always had the ability to remember the good things and let the bad ones go."
"Not a bad ability."
" ... I'm not sure. I think we have to remember it all before we can forgive it. — Madeleine L'Engle

Mercy is God's loving response to sinners; and mercy is our loving response to others - and to ourselves - in circumstances of need. To this I would add that mercy, as an experience of love, has an unexpected quality - something unforeseen or unanticipated. We talk about mercy when we feel or offer forgiveness, when we find or give help and assistance, but we also speak about "mercy" when we are surprised by good deeds that catch us unawares and transform our lives for the better. — Mathew N. Schmalz

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

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

Character is the product of daily, hourly actions, words and thoughts: daily forgiveness, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial. It is these, like the blinding colors in a picture, or the blending notes of music, which constitute the person. — John Ross Macduff

Now here's a good one:
you're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive? — Louise Penny

I know for me, going back the person I've bad-mouthed or lied to is absolutely humiliating! But isn't it interesting that "humiliating" has the same root word as "humility"? Part of humility is taking responsibility for my sin and asking forgiveness even when it doesn't feel good. God wants to heal and restore your relationships, but it's not easy. — Chip Ingram

You're the one getting ready to bolt, Jesper. You just want me to run with you so you don't have to feel so bad about it. For all your love of a fight, you're always the first to talk about running for cover."
"I made a mistake. I let my bad get the best of my good, but for Saints' sake, Kaz, how long are you going to make me pay for a little forgiveness? [...] How many times have I had your back in a fight? How many times have I gotten it right? Doesn't that count for anything?" Jesper threw up his hands. "I can't win with you. No one can. — Leigh Bardugo

Abraham had eight sons
not one. All eight sons bring something to the table. Abraham loved all of his sons. He was a good father who made sure all his sons were literate, of good character and shared a common ideology with their father, Abraham. Abraham did good. Where did we go wrong?
pg 54 — Michael Ben Zehabe

We ought to love one another — Lailah Gifty Akita

To make a good man, God has to use all of his skill. Some of the goodness of God himself goes into such a man. And when the man is ready to take his place on the earth, God must feel the pride that I feel when I look at the rug I am weaving, at the strands that bind closely together and knot and make a pattern, and at the beauty of the colours. Such a long day's work to make a good man! And yet, one bullet that takes a second to speed through the air and strike a man will kill him in an instant. How can God forgive such a thing? And yet He can, so it is said, for His heart is great and His forgiveness infinite, if the sinner repents. But I am not God and I cannot forgive the man who killed my brother. — Najaf Mazari

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity. — Benjamin Franklin

You can love them, forgive them, want good things for them ... but still move on without them. — Mandy Hale

I think the highest forgiveness is to accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality given outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all that there is only one life and each of us is free to shape it through the choices we make.
Seeking can't get anyone out of the tangle because everything is tangled up ... it's much easier to keep up the fight between good and evil, holy and profane, us and them. But as awareness grows, these opposites begin to calm down in their clashes, and something else emerges- a world you feel at home in. — Deepak Chopra

God is a good God, and that he's on our side, and that he has great things in store and I believe that as we receive the forgiveness that Christ came and was born and died to give us, then we can live a great life. — Joel Osteen

In the meantime, we must hold fast to the truth of who God is and His unchanging nature: God is good. His plans are good. His requirements are good. His salvation is good. His grace is good. His forgiveness is good. His restoration is good. — Lysa TerKeurst

I have known many survivors for whom the holocaust is the central them of their lives. They have no other. I have tried to live with tolerance and forgiveness as the theme of my life.

God have us the power to be good or evil. This is our choice. Because some pick evil, we must work together to recognize and stop it. But while we survivors may lead the change, we cannot do this alone. It must be the goal of all people. If we will join in this goal, then there is hope for humanity. — Andrea Warren

There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us. — Martin Luther King Jr.

None of us deserve the good things that come our way. It's by grace, love and forgiveness that any of us experience joy. — J.B. McGee

No, I don't believe it," Joseph said. "From listening to my father and grandfather talk about El Shaddai, I think he's different from the gods of Egypt. I think that none of us could ever be good enough for God. I think of Him as being so good that a human can't even enter His presence. A man would die if he did. I think God's merciful, Rashidi. I think he forgives us because he loves us, just as we forgive our children because we love them.
"Rashidi's eyes brightened. "A God that loves people! Now there's a new thought! — Gilbert Morris

On hearing the jingle of harness behind them, they turned. Melletin and Yelena were fast catching up, both grinning broadly.

"How did it go?" Ramil called.

"Would you believe it: he threatened to lock me up in his mother's house if I didn't behave!" exclaimed Yelena, sticking her tongue out at Melletin. "I threw a roll at him and he clipped me around the ear. The soldiers were all about to beat him up when I burst into tears and begged his forgiveness. We had a passionate reconciliation and went on our way with their good wishes for our marital harmony."

Melletin rubbed his lips. "Where's the next checkpoint, Yelena? I can't wait to do that again."

"Watch it, sir: I'll report you," Yelena threatened, but she looked very pleased all the same. — Julia Golding

Dads. It's time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It's time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It's time to show forgiveness and compassion. It's time to show our children empathy. It's time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It's time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls "tom boys" or our boys "feminine" just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don't matter? — Dan Pearce

The gospel is not mere forgiveness or grace, empty of content, but always refers to Jesus. So the gospel is good news about a human person who is God in our history, our world and who came to accomplish something in his life death and resurrection. — William McDavid

Forgiveness - this needs to be our greatest skill. The way to get good at forgiveness is: to be thankful for all the little things you see in the other person. — Tony Robbins

That's how we often react when grace comes at us. It's awkward. God offers us something that's too good to be true - unearned, unmerited, total forgiveness - and we stand there, stiff and uncomfortable, waiting for the embrace to stop so we can get back to the business of earning our way into heaven. We need to embrace grace. We need to learn how to hug back. — Judah Smith

If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the wholeworld will be blind and toothless. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself. — Linda Sue Park

Yes, this is what good is: to forgive evil. There is no other good. — Antonio Porchia

But since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, things haven't been fair. Bad things happen to good people. But if we wait for justice, we are putting our lives under the control of those who hurt us. Better far to take God's solution of grief and forgiveness and grow through the unfair situation. Remember that God himself didn't demand fairness and justice for us; rather, he valued his relationship with us so much that he went to the cross for us: "Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6). — Henry Cloud

We need repentance. You see, repentance is not only going to a priest and confessing. We must free ourselves from the obsession of thoughts. We fall many times during our life, and it is absolutely necessary to reveal everything [in Confession] to a priest who is a witness to our repentance.
Repentance is the renewal of life. This means we must free ourselves from all our negative traits and turn toward absolute good. No sin is unforgivable except the sin of unrepentance. — Thaddeus Of Vitovnica

Three great actions:
To do what is right,
To love mercy, and
To walk humbly with Yahweh. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A good place to begin, is to forgive yourself for judging in the first place. — Bryant McGill

Any attempt to reduce the Bible to a guidebook for how to live is not only wrong, it's also idolatrous. It replaces Christ at the center with something else, with moralism. The point of the Word, the goal of Christianity, is not to teach you how to be a good person, or a good man. The goal is repentance and forgiveness, given freely to sinners, because of the substitutionary death of the God-man, Jesus. — Jeffrey Hemmer

To love those who love us and are good to us is easy. To love those who are indifferent to us is workable, but to love those who have harmed us, intentionally or not, is true growth and realization. — Patsie Smith

I don't believe in forgiveness. I think if you hurt someone, it becomes part of you both. Each of you just has to live with it and the person you hurt gets to decide if they want to give you the chance to do it again. If they do and you're a good person, you won't make the same mistakes. Just whole new ones. — Courtney Summers

Married people should be best friends; no relationship on earth needs friendship as much as marriage ... Friendship in a marriage is so important. It blows away the chaff and takes the kernel, rejoices in the uniqueness of the other, listens patiently, gives generously, forgives freely. Friendship will motivate one to cross the room one day and say 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.' it will not pretend perfection nor demand it. It will not insist that both respond exactly the same in every thought and feeling, but it will bring to the union honesty, integrity. There will be repentance and forgiveness in every marriage
every good marriage
and respect and trust. — Marion D. Hanks

Love is without a doubt the laziest theory for the meaning of life, but when it actually comes a time to do it we find just enough energy to over-complicate life again. Any devil can love, whom he himself sees as, a good person who has treated him well, but to love also the polar opposite is what separates love from fickle emotions. — Criss Jami

Come. There is a way to be good again... — Khaled Hosseini

Self-forgiveness comes when we realize that if God has forgiven us, we needn't remain angry with ourselves, needn't hate ourselves any longer. God will use it all for good. — Robert Morgan

But in short, the recipe for a growing person is always grace plus truth over time. Give a person grace (unmerited favor) an truth (structure), and do that over time, and you have the greatest chance of this person growing into a person of good character. Grace includes support, resources, love, compassion, forgiveness, and all of the relations sides of God's nature. Truth is the structure of life; it tells us how we are supposed to live our lives and how life really works. — Henry Cloud

Renewal of the mind is good for the soul because it allows you to be focused and gain understanding of your life choices. It allows you to renew your spirit and become uplifted filled with hope. Take a moment to transform those negative thoughts into something more positive. And, you will discover anything is possible when you believe. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Lord, help me to have Your love and forgiveness in my heart. Enable me to live in peace, tranquility, simplicity, and good health. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. — Stormie O'martian

We are not forgiven because we are good. We are forgiven because Christ bore our sins. — Joseph Prince

May our hearts be filled with great love for one another. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A near View of Death would soon reconcile Men of good Priciples one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy Scituation in Life, and our putting these Things far from us, that our Breaches are formented, ill Blood continued, Prejudices, Breach of Charity and of Christian Union so much kept and so far carry'd on among us, as it is: Another Plague Year would reconcile all these Differences, a close conversing with Death, or the Diseases that threaten Death, would scum off the Gall from our Tempers, remove the Animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing Eyes, than those which we look'd on Things with before — Daniel Defoe

Never forget that when connections get destroyed by means of bad communication, it's good communication that resolves them. Don't be shy to say "I am sorry" and "please forgive me". That's a good communication! — Israelmore Ayivor

God, why do You love me?"
BECAUSE I AM LOVE.
"God, when do You love me?"
ALWAYS.
"How do You love me?"
WITH GRACE, PATIENCE, AND FORGIVENESS.
"God, am I good enough for You?"
MY PRECIOUS CHILD, YOU DON'T NEED TO BE.
"Why?"
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THAT I GAVE MY ONLY SON, AND HE TOOK UPON HIS SHOULDERS THE AFFLICTIONS AND SINS OF THIS WORLD.
"God, when will I get to see You?"
AFTER YOU CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN ME.
"Then I will know You here, and in Heaven?"
YES, THEN YOU WILL KNOW ME HERE, AND IN HEAVEN.
"I love you, God."
He always replies,
I LOVED YOU YESTERDAY,
I LOVE YOU TODAY,
AND I WILL LOVE YOU TOMORROW.
~ excerpt from "Halo Found Hope" Chapter 21, HOPE FOUND — Helo Matzelle

Have you ever made a decision that sounded good at the time but then led to unanticipated results? — Holly Elissa Bruno

Christian consciousness experiences itself in a curious sense as LIBERATED TO FAIL, without intolerable damage to self-esteem and without any reduction of moral seriousness. We are free to be inadequate, free to foul things up, and yet affirm ourselves in a more basic sense than the secular moralist or humanistic idealist (who can affirm themselves only on the basis of merits and accomplishments. We are free to choose and deny finite values, free to take constructive guilt upon us and to see it as an inevitable and providentially given aspect of our fallen human condition.
All that we have said leads us to the pinnacle of this good news: In Jesus Christ we need no longer be guilty before God. It is only before our clay-footed gods that we stand guilty! — Thomas C. Oden

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.

All of us, all human beings, are basically inclined or disposes toward what we perceive to be good. Whatever we do, we do because we think it will be of some benefit. At the same time, we all appreciate the kindness of others. We are all, by nature, oriented toward the basic human values of love and compassion. We all prefer the love of others to their hatred. We all prefer others' generosity to their meanness. And who among us does not prefer tolerance, respect, and forgiveness of out failings to bigotry, disrespect, and resentment? — Dalai Lama XIV

Dear church, John the baptist died for exposing the sins of others. Jesus died to actually pay for the sins of others.

John was great, but we should not follow his model. Our model is Christ. So lets stop telling the world how bad their sin is and lets start sharing how good the Father has always been. — Carlos A. Rodriguez

It's good to learn early that every show is a family
complete with dysfunctional relationships, tough love, and plenty of occasion for forgiveness ... — Kristin Chenoweth

The gentle art of being gentle - of kindness and forgiveness, sensitivity and thoughtfulness and generosity and humility and good old-fashioned love - have gone out of fashion. Ironically, everyone is demanding their "rights," and this demand is so shrill that it destroys one of the most basic "rights," if we can put it like that: the "right," or at least the longing and hope, to have a peaceful, stable, secure, and caring place to live, to be, to learn, and to flourish. — N. T. Wright

Love grows from the rich foam of forgiveness, mongrels make good dogs, and the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things. — Wally Lamb

The practice of forgiveness is very much like the practice of meditation. You have to do it often and persist at it in order to be any good. — Katerina Stoykova Klemer

Forgiveness is all about taking care of you, not the person you need to forgive. It's about putting your desire to feel good before your desire to be right. It's about taking responsibility for your own happiness instead of pretending it's in somebody else's hands. It's about owning your power by giving all your anger, resentment, and hurt the heave-ho. — Jen Sincero

But forgiveness ... I'll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. — Libba Bray

[Margaret] went to a talk on parenting at the end of the school year where the speaker had said that doing good things, charitable things, was actually a selfish act, because it made you feel good. She has been mulling that ever since. Should she do something selfless, something good? Should she reach out to someone who really needs her forgiveness? Would this make her feel better? — Janice Y.K. Lee

God makes no bones about His willingness in extreme cases to take a child home if that's the only way to stop them from destruction. Complete forgiveness and restoration is ours - even usefulness in the Body of Christ and lives of faithful service! God can work everything together for good and redeem our failures. He will gladly be strong in our weaknesses and show us His gracious favor. He can plunder the enemy and take back what Satan stole from us. — Beth Moore

Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which, in their limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with mercy, show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are good and just. He will be horror-stricken; he will be crushed by remorse and the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth. And he will not say then, 'I am quits,' but will say, 'I am guilty in the sight of all men and am more unworthy than all.' With tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he will exclaim: 'Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin me! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The real essentials of life - compassion, kindness, good will, forgiveness - are what is fundamental to living as a true human being. — Eknath Easwaran

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

As readers, we are seldom interested in the fine sentiments of a lesson learnt; we seldom care about the good manners of morals. Repentance puts an end to conversation; forgiveness becomes the stuff of moralistic tracts. Revenge - bloodthirsty, justice-hungry revenge - is the very essence of romance, lying at the heart of much of the best fiction. — Alberto Manguel

A counselor, David Seamands, summed up his career this way: Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. ... We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions. — Philip Yancey

Salvation is always "good news." It is news of God's love and forgiveness - adoption into His family - fellowship with His people - freedom from the penalty of sin - liberation from the power of sin. — Billy Graham

While forgiveness is an important part of the gospel, the good news goes beyond that. It amounts to the claim that the kingdom of God - the direct availability of God himself and His rule - is now available to anyone who will enter it through trust in Jesus. — J.P. Moreland