Quotes
Quotes about Guilt
Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.
Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.
The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
I am having so much fun performing, I feel almost guilty. I think, my God, I hope no one comes and busts me for this.
The more sinful and guilty a person tends to feel, the less chance there is that he will be a happy, healthy, or law-abiding citizen. He will become a compulsive wrong-doer.
He that is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others: So they will try to reduce all others to their own level.
Fear of success can also be tied into the idea that success means someone else's loss. Some people are unconsciously guilty because they believe their victories are coming at the expense of another.
Father of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
Would I describe a preacher, . . . . I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.
What we call real estate--the solid ground to build a house on--is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience.
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.
Propaganda...serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
Whence come these hatreds...? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others- and there is a most determined and persistent effort to mask this switch.
Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted. [Lat., Cavendum est ne major poena quam culpa sit; et ne iisdem de causis alii plectantur, alii ne appellentur quidem.]
Punishment - The justice that the guilty deal out to those that are caught.
A heavy guilt rests upon us for what the whites of all nations have done to the colored peoples. When we do good to them, it is not benevolence--it is atonement.
Give me, indulgent gods! with mind serene, And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene; No splendid poverty, no smiling care, No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there.
Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself That skins the vice o' th' top; go to your bosom, Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault; if it confess A natural guiltiness such as is his, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life.
The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but I think now 't is not to be found. -Love's Labour 's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.
The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is--to die.
Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.
Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.
