Quotes & Sayings About Unable To Forgive

The alternative to forgiveness, but by no means its opposite, is punishment, and both have in common that they attempt to put an end to something that without interference could go on endlessly. It is therefore quite significant, a structural element in the realm of human affairs, that men are unable to forgive what they cannot punish and that they are unable to punish what has turned out to be unforgivable. — Hannah

If you would take one step forward, darling, you could cry in my arms. And while you do, I'll tell you how sorry I am for everything I've done -" Unable to wait, Ian caught her, pulling her tightly against him. "And when I'm finished," he whispered hoarsely as she wrapped her arms around him and wept brokenly, "you can help me find a way to forgive myself."
Tortured by her tears, he clasped her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her temple, his voice a ravaged whisper: "I'm sorry," he told her. He cupped her face between his palms, tipping it up and gazing into her eyes, his thumbs moving over her wet cheeks. "I'm sorry." Slowly, he bent his head, covering her mouth with his. "I'm so damned sorry. — Judith McNaught

I doubt if it is given to the human being to understand completely the blessed passion and precious death, the mighty resurrection and glorious ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. I know that I do not understand. But I also know that it has nothing to do with the angry unforgiving God who so upset my young friend. If the basic definition of sin is lack of love (that love without which all men are dead in the sight of God, as Cranmer wrote in one of his collects), then an inability to forgive is lack of love, and if God is unable to forgive us then he is lacking in love, and so he is not God. At least, he is not the God who makes glad my heart. — Madeleine L'Engle

She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She'd been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she'd never even known they were there. — Han Kang

I noticed that religion gave some people a way to escape dealing with the world: "Things will be better when you die," the people of my grandma's generation said as they worked themselves to death. "God wants you to forgive and love those who do you wrong," some people said to shake off the shame of being unable to respond to the abuse they endured. The holier-than-thou faction found comfort in believing, "The rest of y'all are lost because you don't have a personal relationship with God - our God."
But art engages you in the world, not just the world around you but the big world, and not just the big world of Tokyo and Sydney and Johannesburg, but the bigger world of ideas and concepts and feelings of history and humanity. — Wynton Marsalis

When you are unable to forgive someone, you deny yourself a life free of anger and hate. — Winsome Campbell-Green

A child who's been injured by a parent waits her whole life for some acknowledgment of the wrong that's been done, some validation from him that her pain is real, that he's sorry and will make amends. The child will wait forever, unable to move forward, unable to forgive, without someone to acknowledge the past. In that powerlessness comes a terrible rage. — Lisa Unger

If you are unable to admit your mistakes, you cannot expect others to forgive them. Be honest and sincere, there is no shame in that. — Shelley K. Wall

Unconditional Love also requires forgiveness. Recall that whatever you fail to forgive, you tie to yourself with an invisible chain through the attracting power of Love. If you are unable to unconditionally love another because of your negative emotions about their actions, you tie yourself to those negative emotions. — Dannye Williamsen

Forgiveness is so powerful. You give a person so much power over you when you are unable to let go and simply forgive. — B.M. Hardin

He believed in God even if he was doubtful of men's claims to know God's mind. But that a God unable to forgive was no God at all. — Cormac McCarthy

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility--of being unable to undo what one has done--is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself. — Hannah Arendt

The soul that is unable to forgive is sentenced to an endless purgatory where time stands still and it is forced to relive its pain over and over onto eternity. — Max Patrick

When she had the strength, she began to fold the tiny clothes and blankets and cloth diapers and put them into plain brown boxes. She didn't stop working, but the sobs came and distorted her face, bleared her eyes, made her nose run. She didn't hear Jack come to the door. When she looked up he was watching her silently, and then he turned away, uncomfortable, embarrassed by her unharnessed grief. He didn't put his hand on her shoulder. Didn't hold her. Didn't say a word. Even these many years later, she was unable to forgive him that. — Eowyn Ivey

If we have not seen our sin and sought radical forgiveness from God, we will be unable to forgive and to seek the good of those who have wronged us. — Timothy Keller

Unable to forgive his own sins, unsatisfied with just the goodness of his heart, [Kerouac] would go on poisoning his body until it rotted around him, rotted, bloated, exploded, and fell away to let the pure Jack Kerouac, the saint, escape free at last - remembered only as a ghost. — Gerald Nicosia

There's something called the physiology of forgiveness. Being unable to forgive other people's faults is harmful to one's health. — Herbert Benson

Forgive yourself for the child you were unable to save, Darius, and praise God for the many who are alive today because of your actions. — Karen Witemeyer

His chief failing was a habit of cracking heavy pedantic jokes; he was unable to let a good idea drop, and remarked several times during the course of the film that the heroine looked like she ought to be playing the horse. The comment had some truth in it, in that the heroine did have an equine cast of feature, but he made it too often, and with too little variation; however, she was willing to forgive him, in view of his evident tolerance of her social errors, such as an inability to say whether or not she wanted an ice cream. — Margaret Drabble