Quotes & Sayings About Wrongdoing

Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither does one. Revenge may seem petty by day, but on some nights she becomes Justice. — Ashly Lorenzana

While we avoid taking credit for success, women leap at the opportunity to take responsibility for failure. Men tend to externalize the reasons for their failure, putting it off on something or someone else. Not so women, who absorb blame as if they were born to be societys doormats. (Some women like to speak of their willingness to take blame as if it were a form of altruism. It isn't. Women take the blame because they find it scary to confront those who are actually culpable of wrongdoing.) — Colette Dowling

For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed? — Bell Hooks

Your opponent's wrong doesn't automatically make you right. Most fights aren't about who's right; they are contention over degrees of wrongness. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We must admit that we've put our ultimate hope and trust in things other than God, and that in both our wrongdoing and right doing we have been seeking to get around God or get control of God in order to get hold of those things. — Timothy Keller

The elder brother is not losing the father's love in spite of his goodness, but because of it. It is not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father, it's the pride he has in his moral record; it's not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that is keeping him from sharing in the feast of the father. — Timothy Keller

History deals with situations and figures not imaginary but real. It demands therefore a combination of qualities unnecessary to the poet or writer of romance - glacial judgment coupled with fervent sympathy. The poet may be an uninspired illiterate, the romance-writer an uninspired hack. Under no circumstances can either of them be accused of wrongdoing or deceiving the public, however incongruous their efforts. They write well or badly, and there the matter ends. The historian, who fails in his duty, deceives the reader and wrongs the dead. — Norman Douglas

I believe that God both wills and is able to bring good out of everything, even the worst ... I believe that even our mistakes and wrongdoing are not fruitless ... — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If someone robs a 7-11, they took $500 and they were able to settle the next day for $50 and no admission of wrongdoing, they'd knock over that 7-11 again. — Phil Angelides

God does speak - now one way, now another - though no one perceives it. 15In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, 16he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, 17to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, 18to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.[55] — Zondervan Publishing

Rules are not proof of our spirituality. If anything, they are proof of our sinfulness, a reminder that we have a tendency toward wrongdoing and that we need help. — Judah Smith

America washes its dirty linen in public. When scandals such as this one hit, they do sully America's image in the world. But what usually also gets broadcast around the world is the vivid reality that the United States forces accountability and punishes wrongdoing, even at the highest levels. — Fareed Zakaria

Can you envision a world without men? No wrongdoing and bunches of euphoric, chubby women. — Nicole Hollander

Now, with the Transparency Act, the government has set out to reveal wrongdoing by chiefs, not the Department. There is nothing wrong with the act except the context, the attitude and the political purpose. — John Ralston Saul

Guilt agonizes over trifles, ignores habitual wrongdoing. — Mason Cooley

Finding a way to extend forgiveness to ourselves is one of our most essential tasks. Just as others have been caught in suffering, so have we. If we look honestly at our life, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves; we can hold the pain we have caused in compassion. Without such mercy, we will live our own life in exile. — Jack Kornfield

Why should the court impose a judgment in a case in which the SEC alleges a serious securities fraud, but the defendant neither admits nor denies wrongdoing? — Jed S. Rakoff

When someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing - the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself. — Veronica Roth

Why anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue and above reproach escapes me. — Dick Cavett

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

What line separates the lawful wartime targeting of an enemy combatant from the extrajudicial murder of a man suspected, but not convicted, of wrongdoing? (p8) — Rosa Brooks

Forgive yourself for every wrongdoing.
Forgive others without judging.
Hug others with great love and care.
Be optimistic and be ready to share. — Debasish Mridha

Things you call wrong, describe your levels of acceptance and understanding.. — Himmilicious

With our sympathy for the wrongdoer we need the old Puritan and Quaker hatred of wrongdoing; with our just tolerance of men and opinions a righteous abhorrence of sin. — John Greenleaf Whittier

My case clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive whistleblower protection act reform. If we had had a real process in place, and reports of wrongdoing could be taken to real, independent arbiters rather than captured officials, I might not have had to sacrifice so much to do what at this point even the President seems to agree needed to be done. — Edward Snowden

The further one gets from 1912, the more frequently whites have tried to deflect attention away from the county's long history of bigotry by pointing to a specific group: the Ku Klux Klan. It's easy to understand the appeal of such an argument, since it exonerates the ordinary 'people of the county' from wrongdoing during the expulsions and implies that they themselves were the victims of an invasion by hooded, cross-burning white supremacists. The only trouble is that in the America of 1912, there was no such thing as the KKK. — Patrick Phillips

Bacon gave his reasons for the rebellion in a paper called "Declaration of the People." It blended the frontiersmen's hatred of the Indians with the common people's anger toward the rich. Bacon accused the Berkeley government of wrongdoing, including unfair taxes and not protecting the western farmers from the Indians. — Howard Zinn

Based on a string of bad breakups, I was forced to examine my choice of partners. Surely, that must have abolished me from any wrongdoing. — Leo Buscaglia

Under all wrongdoing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we are endowed and privileged beyond our fellows. — James Stephens

Some are wandering into forbidden paths because they are seeking popularity with their peers, even to the extent of doing things they know are wrong. They cannot stand criticism or ridicule and will not take a firm stand against wrongdoing. — Nathan Eldon Tanner

True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old Nick in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any kind of wrongdoing or mischief. — Louis L'Amour

I am not opposed to the limited use of polygraphs in a case where a person is suspected of wrongdoing. But widespread use of the polygraph as a screening tool goes far beyond what is acceptable. — Jeff Bingaman

But "knowing the truth" does not come with redemption as a guarantee, nor does a feeling of redemption guarantee an end to a cycle of wrongdoing. Some would even say it is key to maintaining it, insofar as it can work as a reset button - a purge that cleans the slate, without any guarantee of change at the root. Placing all one's eggs in "the logic of exposure," as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick has put it (in Touching Feeling), may also simply further the logic of paranoia. "Paranoia places its faith in exposure," Sedgwick observes - which is to say that the exposure of a disturbing fact or situation does not necessarily alter it, but in fact may further the circular conviction that one can never be paranoid enough. — Maggie Nelson

Most thoughts of wrongdoing are tempered by fear of retribution, which doesn't exonerate us or make us better. We are what we are.
JT Barrett — James T. Barrett

How barbarous, to deny men the privilege of pursuing what they imagine to be their proper concerns and interests! Yet, in a sense, this is just what you are doing when you allow your indignation to rise at their wrongdoing; for after all, they are only following their own apparent concerns and interests. You say they are mistaken? Why then, tell them so, and explain it to them, instead of being indignant. — Marcus Aurelius

How do you forgive someone who hasn't apologized? How do you forgive someone who hasn't acknowledged wrongdoing? — Zukiswa Wanner

In the face of nature's overwhelming forces, humans needed a God who would protect them from harm. When they felt that they had broken the law or committed wrongdoing, people turned to a God who would judge them on the one hand and redeem their sins on the other. In this way, purely from slef-interest, the project of creating God in our own image proceeded
and continues to proceed. — Deepak Chopra

All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you'll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being "left alone," is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant. — Glenn Greenwald

Nothing is bad which does not harm either you or someone else. — Myrtle Reed

As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake. — Hannah Arendt

Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice. — Anthony Burgess

Believing the right things about Jesus isn't enough. You're not adopted as God's child until you confess and turn away from your wrongdoing and receive the freely offered gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased with his death on the cross. Until you do that, you'll always be on the outside looking in. — Lee Strobel

of wrongdoing and rightdoing, — Khaled Hosseini

Day and Night
The night is long: do not shorten it by sleep. The day is fair: do not darken it with wrongdoing. — Idries Shah

There are two things to be aware of if the fight against evil inclinations is to have any chance of success. First, our efforts will never be sufficient on their own. Only the grace of Christ can win us the victory. Therefore our chief weapons are prayer, patience, and hope. Second, one passion can only be cured by another - a misplaced love by a greater love, wrong behavior by right behavior that makes provisions for the desire underlying the wrongdoing, recognizes the conscious or unconscious needs that seek fulfillment and either offers them legitimate satisfaction or transfers them to something compatible with the person's calling. — Jacques Philippe

These friends represent an oversimplified "orthodoxy," based on a misreading of the wisdom tradition to the effect that all troubles are punishments for wrongdoing. Their "comfort" consists largely of applying this message to Job, urging him to identify his sin and repent of it. — Anonymous

If perchance a friend should betray you; if he forms a subtle plot to get hold of what is yours; if people should try to spread evil reports about you, would you tamely submit to all this without flying into a rage? — Moliere

Above all Christians are not allowed to correct by violence sinful wrongdoings. — Clement Of Alexandria

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act. — John Patrick Shanley

And if there's bad behaviour," Mma Potokwane went on. "If there's bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love. That always works, you know. People say we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you're only punishing yourself. And what's the point of that? — Alexander McCall Smith

We do wrong because people do it, never realizing that we are the people. — Raheel Farooq

We are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it is unpleasant to us. — George Eliot

Sometimes ...
I don't tell people about their wrongdoings.
I tell them about the gain of doing otherwise. — Toba Beta

To let yourself know that you want something, that you yearn for it. Sometimes that's the hardest thing to do. Because you have to have courage to know what you desire. You have to have courage to acknowledge that you are unhappy without it. And sometimes you have to find courage to know that it was your folly or your wrongdoing which lost it; before you make a spell to bring it back, you have to change yourself. That's one of the deepest transformations that can be. — Philippa Gregory

When a population feels alienated from the legal system under which it lives, because that system fails to protect it from real dangers while lending succor and encouragement to every possible kind of wrongdoing, the population may well lose faith in the very idea of law. That is how civilization unravels. — Anthony Daniels

Out beyond
the ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense. — Rumi

But there is one whom you do not deceive, and that is Christ, our Lord. He knows all. Personally, I have felt that nobody need keep much of a record about me, except what I keep myself in my mind, which is a part of my spirit. I often question in my mind, whether it is going to require very many witnesses in addition to my own wrongdoing. — J. Reuben Clark

Through my memory of the Passion, God can "purify" my memory of wrongs suffered because my identity stems neither from the wrongdoing done to me, which would require the perpetual accusation of my wrongdoer, nor from my own (false) innocence, which would lead me to (illegitimate) self-justification. — Miroslav Volf

The individual citizen can prove with dismay in this war what occasionally thrust itself upon him already in times of peace, namely, that the state forbids him to do wrong not because it wishes to do away with wrongdoing but because it wishes to monopolize it, like salt and tobacco. — Sigmund Freud

This mortal probation is a brief period-just a short span, linking the eternity of the past with the eternity of the future. Yet it was to be a period of tremendous importance. It is, in fact, the most vital period of our entire eternal existence. In this mortal state we come face to face with innumerable temptations and pressures. Sometimes we come in contact with advocates of wrongdoing, disobedience, and sin. Lucifer is going about tempting those who can be tempted to see if he can lead them astray. — ElRay L. Christiansen

We estimate wrongdoing in proportion to the purity of our conscience — Honore De Balzac

A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation ... you have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it. — Seneca The Younger

And if you learn only one thing from the ensuing maybe let it be this: the police were not merely interested observers who occasionally witnessed criminality and were then basically compelled to make an arrest, rather the police had the special ability to in effect create Crime by making an arrest almost whenever they wishes, so widespread was wrongdoing. Consequently, the decision on who would become a body was often affected by overlooked factors like the candidate's degree of humility, the neighborhood it lived in, and most often the relevant officers' need for overtime. — Sergio De La Pava

Love doesn't keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn't bring up past failures. None of us is perfect. In marriage we do not always do the right thing. We have sometimes done and said hurtful things to our spouses. We cannot erase the past. We can only confess it and agree that it was wrong. We can ask for forgiveness and try to act differently in the future. Having confessed my failure and asked forgiveness, I can do nothing more to mitigate the hurt it may have caused my spouse. When I have been wronged by my spouse and she has painfully confessed it and requested forgiveness, I have the option of justice or forgiveness. If I choose justice and seek to pay her back or make her pay for her wrongdoing, I am making myself the judge and her the felon. Intimacy becomes impossible. If, however, I choose to forgive, intimacy can be restored. Forgiveness is the way of love. — Gary Chapman

Admittedly, guilt can be my default setting. After a social gathering, I'm often left with a vague sense of wrongdoing that I try to pinpoint the source of. Had I laughed insensitively or slighted someone unintentionally? And I always feel accused in Nordstrom. The saleswomen look at my jeans and inexpensive haircut and I'm sure they're thinking I'm about to slip a pair of earrings into my purse. I feel guilty when I eat white bread and when I don't recycle. — Deb Caletti

when confession and sacrifice are done, it is as if the wrongdoing never occurred. — Carlene Havel

Every mind has its particular standard of good and bad, and of right and wrong. This standard is made by what one has experienced through life, by what one has seen or heard; it also depends upon one's belief in a certain religion, one's birth in a certain nation and origin in a certain race. But what can really be called good or bad, right or wrong, is what comforts the mind and what causes it discomfort. It is not true, although it appears so, that it is discomfort that causes wrongdoing. In reality, it is wrongdoing which causes discomfort, and it is right-doing which gives comfort. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

Diana knew it wouldn't be right, but then she told herself that things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you. — Anna Godbersen

He who profits by villainy, has perpetrated it. — Iain Pears

The mentor can be identified by four things: by restraining you from wrongdoing, guiding you towards good actions, telling you what you ought to know, and showing you the path to heaven. — Gautama Buddha

My eyes fix on my reflection in the mirror as the water warms up for my shower.
I'm not sure if it's just my perception, but I look older than my thirty-eight years.
I certainly feel older, too.
I feel like I've lived more than one lifetime, each of them lasting an eternity. An eternity of rage, and resentment, and wrongdoing ... it takes its toll on a man, that's for certain. But none of it had half as much effect on me as this past year. Something I learned was sentiment can take it out of you. I used to have no regard for myself - or anybody, for that matter. I had no reason to live anymore. But now that I care about what happens to her - and for her sake, me - I'm growing exhausted from the constant worry.
Worry my past will catch up to us.
Worry that she'll be the one to pay for those sins.
It's the consequence, I think, of loving me.
The consequence of being with someone who lived so carelessly. — J.M. Darhower

With trials, you become wiser. You learn more about yourself and the people surrounding you. Me personally, I've never been the type of person to judge anyone over wrongdoing, no matter what it is. I'm just not a judgmental person. — Adrian Peterson

I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. — Hippocrates

To remember a wrongdoing is to struggle against it. — Miroslav Volf

Some among the Armenians in the diaspora would never want the Turks to recognize the genocide. If they do so, they'll pull the rug out from under our feet and take the strongest bond that unites us. Just like the Turks have been in the habit of denying their wrongdoing, the Armenians have been in the habit of savoring the cocoon of victim hood. Apparently, there are some old habits that need to be changes on both sides. Baron Baghdassarian — Elif Shafak

If one must do a wrong, it's best to do it pursuing power-otherwise, let's have virtue. — Euripides

The Philippines is a country in which a man of morals can't be president, in which a politician who hasn't been linked to any wrongdoing isn't assumed to be honest, but merely better at hiding his corruption. — Raymond Bonner

Indian history is the antidote to the pious ethnocentrism of American exceptionalism, the notion that European Americans are God's chosen people. Indian history reveals that the United States and its predecessor British colonies have wrought great harm in the world. We must not forget this - not to wallow in our wrongdoing, but to understand and to learn, that we might not wreak harm again. — James W. Loewen

We've come to understand sin as a kind of moral failing, but that interpretation actually comes from the power structures of the church and religious authorities. If you can convince somebody that they are inherently impure and that there is a mistake at the center of their being, then sin becomes a wrongdoing that deserves blame. — Adyashanti

Part of the power of all storytelling is reassurance, offering hope to those sat in the darkness, that good can succeed and wrongdoing fail. — Charles Sturridge

I would rather be a conscious wrongdoer than a mindless saint. — Habeeb Akande

I would draw a really big distinction between competition, or potential competition, and a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest implies wrongdoing, whereas competition is really healthy. — Bill Maris

People should be allowed to document evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Where is the expectation of privacy if someone is conspiring to commit crime? — Linda Tripp

When you study the wrongs you have committed before you study the wrongs done to you, you have no choice but to label yourself inherently evil, and be forced to dissociate emotionally to avoid the horrible pain in this lie. — Daniel Mackler

Invoke the Mercy of God and as milk returns not to the udder go not back to your wrongdoing." "Have compassion on yourself and on others and Infinite Compassion will be given to you." "In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, All Compassionate, bestow on me a Mercy that shall put me beyond the need of mercy from any other than Thee. — Muhammad

Our mistakes would not wish for anything more, if we could just stop giving birth to them. — Munia Khan

You have to be a bit of a dreamer to imagine a world where love trumps hate--but I don't think being a dreamer is all that bad. Joel prophesied that God would "pour out [His] Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions" (Joel 2:28). I'm an old man, and this is one of my dreams: that my descendants will one day live in a land where people are quick to confess their wrongdoing and forgive the wrongdoing of others and are eager to build something beautiful together. — John M. Perkins

Not in the sense of investigators saying that she [Lula] was personally enriched as a result of the scandal, but there are new reports emerging this week claiming that she may have had a hand in trying to derail the investigations. She was chairwoman of the board for years, so she has come under a good deal of criticism over not having identified the wrongdoing at that time. — Simon Romero

The gods, likening themselves to all kinds of strangers, go in various disguises from city to city, observing the wrongdoing and the righteousness of men. — Homer

eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seducea the unstable;b they are experts in greedc - an accursed brood!d 15They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaame son of Bezer,6 who loved the wages of wickedness. 16But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey - an animal without speech - who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.f — Anonymous

The late Dr. Harry Ironside once said, "Beware lest we mistake our prejudices for our convictions." To be sure, we must deplore wickedness, evil, and wrongdoing, but our commendable intolerance of sin too often develops into a deplorable intolerance of sinners. Jesus hates sin but loves the sinner. — Billy Graham

The rat is the moustache in the trache. The wrongdoer in the soer. — J. Patrick Lewis

If you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. Matthew 6:14 — Beth Moore

The popularity of disaster movies expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious. — David Mamet

When political leaders fail to denounce anti-Semitic violence and slurs, the void is not only demoralizing to the victims, but silence actually enables the wrongdoing. Silence by elected officials in particular conveys approval - or at least acquiescence - and can contribute to a climate of fear and a sense of vulnerability. — Chris Smith

When people treat corruption as a routine part of the process, you have something far worse than wrongdoing or moral failing. You have a political cancer that breeds cynicism about democratic government and infects all of society. — Edward Brooke

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. - RUMI — Jandy Nelson

Not because he had complete courage based on overwhelming strength, which is merely a matter of course, but because, by his sorrow for wrongdoing ad his willingness to do anything to expiate it, he showed greatness of soul. — Edith Hamilton

why man found himself driven to wrongdoing in spite of good intentions, Krishna replied, Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni