Forgiveness Quotes and Proverbs

Doc Childre and Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution
As difficult as it seems, you can be sure of this: At the core of the heart, you have the power to move beyond the old issues that are still hindering your freedom. The hardest things—the ones that push you up against your limits—are the very things you need to address to make a quantum leap into a fresh inner and outer life.

Doc Childre and Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution
In the long run, it's not a question of whether they deserve to be forgiven. You're not forgiving them for their sake. You're doing it for yourself. For your own health and well-being, forgiveness is simply the most energy-efficient option. It frees you from the incredibly toxic, debilitating drain of holding a grudge. Don't let these people live rent free in your head. If they hurt you before, why let them keep doing it year after year in your mind? It's not worth it but it takes heart effort to stop it. You can muster that heart power to forgive them as a way of looking out for yourself. It's one thing you can be totally selfish about.

Doc Childre and Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution
Take it slowly. The deepest resentments are wrapped up in a lot of hurt and pain. We think we're protecting ourselves by not forgiving. Acknowledge that and go easy on yourself. Forgiveness means that you've decided not to let it keep festering inside even if it only comes up once in awhile. Forgiveness is a powerful yet challenging tool that will support and honor you, even in the most extreme circumstances.

Doc Childre and Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution
The incoherence that results from holding on to resentments and unforgiving attitudes keeps you from being aligned with your true self. It can block you from your next level of quality life experience. Metaphorically, it's the curtain standing between the room you're living in now and a new room, much larger and full of beautiful objects. The act of forgiveness removes the curtain. Clearing up your old accounts can free up so much energy that you jump right into a whole new house. Forgiving releases you from the punishment of a self-made prison where you are both the inmate and the jailer.

Sara Paddison, Hidden Power of the Heart
Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time—just like it does for you and me.

David McArthur & Bruce McArthur, The Intelligent Heart
Many people are afraid to forgive because they feel they must remember the wrong or they will not learn from it. The opposite is true. Through forgiveness, the wrong is released from its emotional stranglehold on us so that we can learn from it. Through the power and intelligence of the heart, the release of forgiveness brings expanded intelligence to work with the situation more effectively.

Catherine Ponder
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.

Israel Zangwill
The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.

Mahatma Gandhi
If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the whole world will be blind and toothless.

Forgiveness is giving up the possibility of a better past.
Thanks to Mike D.

from Live and Learn and Pass it On -age 51
I've learned that when you have an argument with your spouse, the first one who says, 'I'm sorry I hurt your feelings; please forgive me,' is the winner.

Alden Nowlan
The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.

Mahatma Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Unknown
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was YOU.

Jean Paul Richter
Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.

Koran
He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy, shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.

Henry Ward Beecher
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.

Ausonius
Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.

Madame Dorothée Deluzy
It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend.

Mahatma Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

George Bernard Shaw
The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

Josh Billings
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

Oscar Wilde
Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.

Alexander Pope
To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Ed Howe
A woman who can't forgive should never have more than a nodding acquaintance with a man.