I Can Forgive But Can't Forget Quotes & Sayings

But please don't cry, dry your eyes, never let up
Forgive but don't forget, girl keep your head up — Tupac Shakur

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

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

I haven't been to a temple in years, never been forced. My folks always said, marry a nice human being, religion doesn't matter. They said your god is inside you! Don't you forget that. Krishna, Jesus, Allah, are all one. Follow vegetarianism as far as you can, but you can choose your own diet, doesn't matter. Believe in god, but for you and not because the world asks you to. Forgive and forget to be at peace. Do not believe in revenge, believe in karma!! — Manasa Rao

"Got something for you." He held out an old eight millimeter video camera. "I found it downstairs. It's not working, but I think I can fix it."
A video camera? What would I use it for? Recording our great escape? I didn't say that, because I knew it wasn't the point. This was a gift, a way to say "I know I screwed up and I'm sorry."
His eyes begged me to take it. Just take it. Forgive him. Forget what happened. Start over. And that's what I wanted to do - accept his gift and smile and see that spark in his eyes and - — Kelley Armstrong

Forgive and forget ugliness. Look around to find beauty and focus on it. — Debasish Mridha

Buddha said, "Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you."

"And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else. — Gautama Buddha

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

But how? How can you just get over these things, darling? ... You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?'
'I choose to ... I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.'
'But it's not that easy.'
He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No' - his voice became sober- 'we always have a choice. All of us.' p.323 — M.L. Stedman

Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-fakes into thinking we haven't really been invited. But you see, we have been invited - every day, all over again. — Bob Goff

This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore. — Barry Lyga

Don't forgive and never forget; Do unto others before they do unto you; and third and most importantly, keep your eye on your friends, because your enemies will take care of themselves! — JR

I think you're under no obligation whatsoever to forgive anything, to forget anything. You're not required to push away the years of abuse because the abuser now chooses to be sober and in his sobriety regrets his actions. And white may be small and unforgiving of me, I think people who do so at the snap of a dam finger are either liars or are in need of serious therapy. I assume you heard him out, so in my personal opinion, any debt you might owe for your existence is now paid in full. It may be fashionable to hold that terrible actions are indeed terrible, but that hte person inflicting them isn't responbile due to alcohol, drugs, DNA, or GD PMS. He damn well was responsible, and if you decided to loathe him for the rest of your life, I wouldn't blame you for it. How's that? (Cybil to Gage - she ROCKS) — Nora Roberts

The people we invite on the train are those with whom we are prepared to be vulnerable and real, with whom there is no room for masks and games. They strengthen us when we falter and remind us of the journey's purpose when we become distracted by the scenery. And we do the same for them. Never let life's Iagos - flatterers, dissemblers - onto your train. We always get warnings from our heart and our intuition when they appear, but we are often too busy to notice. When you realize they've made it on board, make sure you usher them off the train; and as soon as you can, forgive them and forget them. There is nothing more draining than holding grudges. — Arianna Huffington

Khaled, my first teacher, was the kind of man who carried his past in the temple fires of his eyes, and fed the flames with pieces of his broken heart. I've known men like Khaled in prisons, on battlefields, and in the dens where smugglers, mercenaries, and other exiles meet. They all have certain characteristics in common. They're tough, because there's a kind of toughness that's found in the worst sorrow. They're honest, because the truth of what happened to them won't let them lie. They're angry, because they can't forget the past or forgive it. And they're lonely. Most of us pretend, with greater or lesser success, that the minute we live in is something we can share. But the past for every one of us is a desert island; and those like Khaled, who find themselves marooned there, are always alone. — Gregory David Roberts

Always remember the gospel, so you won't forget that God will not expect something of you that He won't both empower you to obey and forgive you for not obeying. — Matt Chandler

If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you've got it half licked. — Arthur Miller

Take care of yourself,forgive and forget the past and live the future you seek to see, listen to and pay attention to your next breath,go after the desires of your heart with all your passion and intellect,and above all live the that you want to lead. — K.J. Kilton

It is not "forgive and forget" as if nothing wrong had ever happened, but "forgive and go forward," building on the mistakes of the past and the energy generated by reconciliation to create a new future. — Alan Paton

Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace. — Leo Tolstoy

We will not be able to find peace if our minds are burning with the fires of resentment. Let us forgive and forget to create peace. — Debasish Mridha

I can forgive and forget ... it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things. — M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

I really believe in, 'Move on, live and let live, forgive and forget.' — Kate Winslet

Nowhere are believers told that life will be a bunch of roses. Just the opposite, in fact. We're always going to have troubles. We're promised that we won't go through those troubles alone. Jesus said to forgive, not to forget. So eventually you'll be able to move past what happened, but you won't forget, so it doesn't happen again. Hate hurts only you, not the person you hate, so letting it go will be very freeing. — Suzanne Floyd

Deep malice makes too deep incision. Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed.
Richard 11, Act 1, Scene 1 — William Shakespeare

Never forget to forgive yourself; always remember to love yourself. — Debasish Mridha

The next day the German police picked them up, loaded them onto an armored truck and took them back to Colditz. Alexander was badly beaten by the German guards and taken to solitary, where he spent so long he lost track of time. With Pasha's death came the death of faith. Release me, Tatiana, release me, forgive me, forget me, let me forget you. I want to be free of you, free of your face, free of your freedom, free of your fire, free, free, free. The flight across the ocean was over, and with it all the warmth of his imagination. A numbness encroached on him, freezing him from the heart out, the anesthetic of despair creeping its tentacles over his ten-dons and his arteries, over his nerves and his veins until he was stiff inside and bereft of hope and bereft of Tatiana. Finally. But not quite. — Paullina Simons

Let us make this world a house of love and peace.
Let us forget and forgive all hate and prejudice.
Let us break all the walls of pride and prejudice.
Let us open our door to welcome joy and peace. — Debasish Mridha

To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, You have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. Both my pride and my principles demand no less. However, although I make no guarantees that I will be able to forget what you've done, and though we may both carry the scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us. I still want you for my friend. — Frederick Buechner

At times one wanders, doubting the facts, even when one has discovered the secrets of the good life. To be sure, my solution is not the ideal.
But when you don't like your own life, when you know that you must change lives, you don't have any choice, do you? What can one do to become
another?Impossible. One would have to cease being anyone, forget oneself for someone else, at least once.But how? Don't bear down too hard on me.
I am like that old beggar who wouldn't let go of my hand one day on a cafe terrace: Oh, sir,he said, its not just that I am no good, but you lose
track of the light.Yes, we have lost track of the light, the mornings, the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves. — Albert Camus

Every person has a life mission to fulfill. Never attempt to destroy what God has put in another person to do. You don't know God's plans, but Satan will most certainly use you to stop his plans. — Shannon L. Alder

If you could forget and forgive what happened."
He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, "I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you. — Leo Tolstoy

The amusement she had drawn from their disapproval was a slavish remnant, a derisive dance on the north bank of the Ohio. There was no question of forgiving them. She had not, in any case, a forgiving nature; and the injury they had done her was not done by them. If she were to start forgiving she must needs forgive Society, the Law, the Church, the History of Europe, the Old Testament, great-great-aunt Salome and her prayer-book, the Bank of England, Prostitution, the Architect of Apsley Terrace, and half a dozen other useful props of civilization. All she could do was to go on forgetting them. But now she was able to forget them without flouting them by her forgetfulness. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

A lot of people, when they say 'forgive and forget,' they think you completely wash your brain out and forget everything. That is not the concept. What I think is you forgive and you forget so you can transform your experiences, not necessarily forget them but transform them, so that they don't haunt you or handicap you or kill you. — Ishmael Beah

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

You just have to forgive certain situations and moments in your life to be able to move on, if you genuinely want to be happy. I am someone who can't hold on to negativity or hold on to grudges. I can't do that. I might feel something at a certain point but I get tired after that. I don't carry it with me. I forgive and forget very easily and that's the only way to be happy and peaceful. — Roberts

You didn't have to rip my dress," she said plaintively when he let her breathe. "I love this one. Nellie worked on it for days." "I'm sorry, lass," he said somberly. " 'Twas an accident, lass. Sometimes I forget my strength. I mean to be gentle but it doesn't come out that way. Can you forgive me? — Karen Marie Moning

I wish I could tell you what happened, but I can't. Someday I will, but I can't right now and I need you to accept that. Please. And I'm not apologizing to you,because I don't want you to forget what happened and you should never forgive me for it. EVER. Never make excuses for me, Sky. — Colleen Hoover

I figured out that I can't forget. I can't really forgive. But I can live. Live with it. Like you live with a scar or a limp or whatever. You always know it's there. It reminds you never to let yourself do anything so stupid and horrible and wrong again. I step out of my rut, step again, and keep stepping. (277) — Gail Giles

I will never forget what you did to me. I will never forgive it. I will never stop mourning what you stole from me. But I realize now I can't steal it back and I'm done spending every day trying to. — Katja Millay

I'm trying to forget just as much as you probably are. Look, I'm not stupid. I know that we can never be the same. But I still wouldn't change anything. It was the plan and it worked. You're not dead and that's worth it to me. Maybe you'll forgive me someday. — James Dashner

Now one day, maybe I can forgive John Andersen for what he done to these trees, but I ain't gonna forget it. I figure forgiving is not letting something nag at you - rotting you out. — Mildred D. Taylor

I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don't travel. I really don't, and if I did, I probably wouldn't visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can't help but feel that the Jews didn't really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can't really turn it back. (#92 ff.) — Isaac Asimov

To an onlooker, his face would be unreadable, but to me I know that look. His thoughts roll around his head like a frantic ball as he considers each excuse he'll give me. At this moment I wish I were the onlooker, a stranger, I know he can't quit for good, not yet. He's searching for the perfect sentence, the perfect touch to bid time until I'm safely sucked into his trap. When he reaches me, he doesn't ask for permission, he pulls me into a hug, wrapping his arms around my back and pulling me into his chest. He's willing me to forget - to forgive because somewhere deep down, he knows this time I won't. — Brittany Butler

Sometimes you have to forget and forgive. Forgive them for hurting you and forget that they exist! — Jeffree Star

Boston fans - and New York fans are the same - it doesn't matter what you do outside of baseball, they don't forgive or forget that you play in pinstripes and they don't care about your interests off the field. — Bronson Arroyo

A gentleman is one who doesn't and can't forgive himself for self-committed mistake even if others forget it and the self-criticism is a mark of his right attitude towards life. — Anuj

Yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great and flourishing empire. — Thomas Jefferson

I suppose I could let bygones be bygones, forgive and forget, yadda yadda. But where's the fun in that? These pretty little bitches got everything I ever wanted, and now I'm going to make sure they get exactly what they deserve. Does that make me sound awful? Sorry, but as every pretty little liar knows, sometimes the truth's ugly-and it always hurts.
I'll be watching ...
Mwah!
-A — Sara Shepard

Everything will usually get worse before it gets better, but when it does get better ... remember all who put you down and all who helped you up. Forgive but never forget. Let Karma take care of all the rest. — Timothy Pina

As you grow into a fine young woman, try not to make excuses. If you know the bottom's safe - jump. If you know it's returned - love. If you really want it - fairly take it. If you run, do it 'til your lungs burn. Laugh until your cheeks ache. And forgive, as you'll always want to be forgiven. I didn't say forget, and certainly your spirit won't allow you to be a doormat, but forgive. Ask yourself always, if they die tonight.. was I really that mad? The answer will almost always be no. So act accordingly. — S.E. Hall

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

Organizations that learn from their failures forgive and remember, they don't forgive and forget. — Robert I. Sutton

Don't dwell too much on the past. The lessons are useful for the present and a preparation for the future. Move on! — Lailah Gifty Akita

Never express anger with a friend or a subordinate in public," Vedris always said. "They might forgive a private expression of anger or a deserved scolding, but they never forget a public humiliation. It is the surest way to destroy a friendship and to create enemies. — Tamora Pierce

In my eyes you're perfect, until you lie to me. Betraying my trust is something I can forgive, but never forget. Stay perfect. — D.C. Akers

One does not have to forgive if forgiveness is not one of his virtues. But one can forget and never come back to the issue. — Boris Zubry

Forgiveness is the most powerful thing you can do for yourself. If you can't learn to forgive, you can forget about achieving true success in your life. — Wayne Dyer

Accept, forgive and forget. Forgive not only the people who hurt us, but also forgive ourselves, accepting whatever is the outcome, then forget the wrongs, learn from them and move on. Holding on to the guilt and pain would just make life miserable for us. — Kcat Yarza

It's not about how long you can live , it's about how long you can forget and forgive. — Abdel Halim Boudekhana

Forgiveness is NOT forgetness. If you forgive, remember to be wise enough NOT to forget. — Widad Akreyi

Women do not forget. Women do not forgive. — George R R Martin

Forgive, but don't forget — Tupac Shakur

Pray you now forget, and forgive: I am old and foolish, — Jean Hegland

We will never forgive and we will never forget. — Frank Herbert

How can you forgive someone when they can't give a reason why? — PureDragonWolf

Or I can forgive and forget ... Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... we always have a choice. — M.L. Stedman

The only thing left to do is forgive and forget. I want to forgive you and I want to forget you. — Lauren Conrad

The key is to forgive and let go of the hate, but never forget. Never forget so that you can protect yourself in the future. We can't always avoid everything and everyone who would hurt us
for that would be avoiding life. But we can be smarter..We can choose not to ignore the signs, for there are always signs. — B.Knight

Forgiveness is too easy. I can forget by indifference, but not forgive. I prefer revenge. — Karl Lagerfeld

Hittite law emphasized restitution rather than revenge. Humankind lost a certain useful practicality when it chose the other Semitic response - never to forgive and never to forget. — Frank Herbert

Do forgive me ... I've no reputation of my own, and I forget they matter. — Saundra Mitchell

Forgive yourself, but don't forget — Alexandra Bracken

I need to learn not just to forget but to forgive. — Haruki Murakami

Empowered Women 101: Forgive yourself for having chosen to expose yourself to people who don't care about your feelings and help others to do the same. Enjoy life! It is as simple as changing your focus or perspective when you start thinking about people from the past who hurt your feelings. Eventually, you will forget about those types of people because your time and attention will be taken up by more positive things/people/events/activities etc. When you understand how much time is wasted trying to make people see you, understand you, respect you, value you, like you or agree with you ... life becomes a pointless negative fight for validation that will drain your happiness. You are worth more than the indifference, inattention or crumbs people throw you. You are a queen that demands respect and God will bring the right person into your life to make you forget why you ever wasted your time on nothing important. — Shannon L. Alder

I think that the people who cling to the resentment and try to place blame on other people end up being unhappy for the rest of their lives. And the smart ones, the ones who focus on themselves and how to make their lives better and richer, and learn to forgive and forget things they had no control over, are the people who end up living happy, productive lives. They are fulfilled. — Pilossoph Jackie