Motivational Quotes on Benefits of Forgiveness
by Whitney Hopler, Communications Manager
We all make mistakes, so we all need forgiveness. Giving and receiving forgiveness empowers us to learn valuable lessons and develop compassion. The process of forgiving strengthens many different types of well-being, according to research. Here are famous quotes on forgiveness and well-being to motivate you to forgive:
“It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.” – Maya Angelou
“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.” – Robert Muller
“Forgiveness is about empowering yourself, rather than empowering your past.” – T. D. Jakes
“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” – Norman Cousins
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, because hate in your heart will consume you too.” – Will Smith
“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.” – Josh Billings
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” – Bruce Lee
“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.’” – Oprah Winfrey
“Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.” – Criss Jami
“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.” – Hannah Arendt
“The people who did you wrong or who didn’t quite know how to show up, you forgive them. And forgiving them allows you to forgive yourself too.” – Jane Fonda
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Boese
“When you haven’t forgiven those who have hurt you, you turn back against your future. When you do forgive, you start walking forward.’ – Tyler Perry
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” – Corrie ten Boom
“Forgiveness is the cornerstone of healing.”- Sylvia Fraser
“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.” – George Herbert
“As long as you don’t forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy a rent-free space in your mind.” – Isabelle Holland
“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.” – Cherie Carter-Scott
“The decision to forgive touches you to your very core, to who you are as a human being.” -Robert Enright
“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” – Alexander Pope
“Forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.” – Lewis Smedes
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” – Oscar Wilde
“There is a nobility in compassion, a beauty in empathy, a grace in forgiveness.” – John Connolly
“The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clinging and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.” – Jack Kornfield
“When people mess up, we forgive them. When I mess up, I ask for forgiveness.” – Michele Bachmann
“When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others, I can see them as teachers of forgiveness in my life, reminding me that I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge.” – Gerald Jampolsky
“Everything is just as it needs to be. And if we would forgive, our minds and hearts would open and we could see another possibility.” – Iyanla Vanzant
“Forgiveness is the experience of peacefulness in the present moment. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it changes the present.” – Frederic Luskin
“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.” – Catherine Ponder
“When true forgiveness happens it is one of the most astonishing and liberating of the human experiences.” – Richard Holloway
“We think that forgiveness is weakness, but it’s absolutely not; it takes a very strong person to forgive.” – T. D. Jakes
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Many people have trouble with forgiveness because they have been taught it is a singular act to be completed in one sitting. That is not so. Forgiveness has many layers, many seasons.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” – Marianne Williamson
“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” – Bryant H. McGill
“Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.” – George MacDonald
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.” – Edwin Hubbel Chapin
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Lewis Smedes
“We are all on a life long journey and the core of its meaning, the terrible demand of its centrality is forgiving and being forgiven.” – Martha Kilpatrick
Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” – Marianne Williamson
“Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.” – Desmond Tutu
“Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.” – Les Brown
“Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Some people would rather die than forgive. It’s a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s an evolution of the heart.” – Sue Monk Kidd
“Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.” – Jessica Lange
“Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness. One of these reasons is waiting for the wrongdoers to repent before we forgive them. Yet such a delay causes us to forfeit the peace and happiness that could be ours.” – James E. Faust
“When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.” – Alan Paton
“If you are bitter, you are like a dry leaf that you can just squash, and you can get blown away by the wind. There is much more wisdom in forgiveness.” – Vusi Mahlasela
“I did a lot of things that I regretted and I certainly paid for my mistakes. You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn’t until I really started doing good and doing right, by other people as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away.” – Mark Wahlberg
“Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.” – Joan Lunden
“Just knowing you don’t have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn – and those are all good things.” – Dick Van Dyke