One unfortunate aspect of life is that we all make mistakes and in doing so sometimes hurt other individuals. Similarly, the people we meet throughout life may leave emotional, or in severe cases, physical scars. Even though we and others may regret our actions later on, the damage cannot be undone. Often times, a long and painful process of vengefulness, regret, and emotional turmoil follows. Forgiveness may often be the only thing that helps us to let go and move on with our lives. The following collection of truly remarkable forgiveness quotes highlights the importance of moving on from what has happened in the past. (You may also like our article about How to Forgive and Let Go.)
Life confronts us sometimes with intense emotional or physical pain that is neither easy to forget nor forgive. Consequently, it’s only natural to feel resentment, anger, and bitterness towards those who have wronged us.
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
Buddha
While this mixture of negative emotions towards what happened is only natural, it will prevent you from ever moving on with your life. For the sake of your emotional well-being, there will have to come the time when you are ready to forgive and move on. Ideally, you also find the courage to say “I’m sorry” when you’ve offended or hurt someone (see also our Quotes to Help You Apologize).
Enjoy these powerful quotes about forgiveness
Contrary to many people’s belief, forgiveness does not imply reconciliation. Similarly, it does not even mean that the act of forgiving is legally or morally justified. It simply means that you are willing to let go of the resentment that torments you. It also means that you have made the conscious decision to accept what happened and to move on with your life.
100 Exceptional Forgiveness Quotes to Forgive and Let Go
No matter how difficult it may seem, never forget that you are not alone. Quite the contrary, many of the greatest individuals that ever lived were confronted with similarly painful situations. Interestingly enough, what makes them so remarkable is their ability to draw strength and courage from the negative happenstance in their lives. This is why the following list of forgiveness quotes is so powerful. All the statements in the following are written by people who had to find ways to deal with what happened to move on with their lives. Not for the sake of the offender, but for the sake of themselves.
Here’s our collection of forgiveness quotes
1.
“To err is human, to forgive, divine.”
Alexander Pope
2.
“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
Steve Maraboli
3.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
Mahatma Gandhi
4.
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
C.S. Lewis
5.
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
6.
“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”
Oprah Winfrey
7.
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
Mark Twain
8.
“Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”
Marvin J. Ashton
9.
“People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.”
Kent M. Keith
10.
“The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. It is one of the great virtues to which we all should aspire.”
Gordon B. Hinckley
11.
“Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us. Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on”
Homer
12.
“It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done.”
Mitch Albom
13.
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
Thomas Szasz
14.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
Lewis B. Smedes
15.
“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
16.
“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
John F. Kennedy
17.
“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
Abraham Lincoln
18.
“To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”
Confucius
19.
“I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”
C.S. Lewis
20.
“When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.”
Jon Krakauer
21.
“Imagine a world filled with individuals willing both to apologize and to accept an apology. Is there any problem that could not be solved among people who possessed the humility and largeness of spirit and soul to do either – or both – when needed?”
Gordon B. Hinckley
22.
“It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.”
Steve Maraboli
23.
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
Oscar Wilde
24.
“Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim–letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.”
C.R. Strahan
25.
“Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation.”
William P. Young
26.
“Always forgive, but never forget, else you will be a prisoner of your own hatred, and doomed to repeat your mistakes forever.”
Wil Zeus
27.
“Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else’s nightmare.”
Lance Morrow
28.
“Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember.”
Barbara Kingsolver
29.
“A heart filled with anger has no room for love.”
Joan Lunden
30.
“I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, everyday, whenever you remember a shortcoming.”
C. JoyBell C.
31.
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
Corrie Ten Boom
32.
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
Nelson Mandela
33.
“True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”
Oprah Winfrey
34.
“Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business.”
Lance Morrow
35.
“We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness. „
Ellen Goodman
36.
“I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
Nelson Mandela
37.
“Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.”
Rick Warren
38.
“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.”
Will Smith
39.
“A merciful heart beats contently stronger than many vengeful ones”
Munia Khan
40.
“Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”
Robert Jordan
41.
“A genuine apology is like an eleventh-hour rain on a dusty crop. Grossly overdue, but miraculously just in time.”
Jacqueline A Bussie
42.
“Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.”
Kamand Kojouri
43.
“It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”
Wendell Berry
44.
“The Lord’s mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.”
Charles Spurgeon
45.
“The art of a sincere and heartfelt apology is one of the greatest skills you will ever learn.”
Jeanette LeBlanc
46.
“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
Benjamin Franklin
47.
“You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.”
Graham Greene
48.
“Mercy is the stuff you give to people that don’t deserve it.”
Joyce Meyer
49.
“An apology is the superglue of life! It can repair just about anything!!”
Lynn Johnston
50.
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
Marianne Williamson
51.
“We don’t forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need it—because we need it.”
Bree Despain
52.
“Forgiveness is the final form of love.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
53.
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
Oscar Wilde
54.
“Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will be the same again.”
W. Paul Young
55.
“Allow yourself to feel anger, allow your waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness. Be human.”
C. JoyBell C.
56.
“Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.”
C.S. Lewis
57.
“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”
Emma Goldman
58.
“There is hope in forgiveness”
John Piper
59.
“Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice. The price you must pay for your own liberation through another’s sacrifice is that you, in turn, must be willing to liberate in the same way, irrespective of the consequences to yourself.”
Dag Hammarskjöld
60.
“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.”
Frederick Buechner
61.
“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.”
Socrates
62.
“You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.”
Albert Camus
63.
“Life is an adventure in forgiveness”
Norman Cousins
64.
“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is, therefore, the means for correcting our misperceptions.”
Gerald G. Jampolsky
65.
“Move on and forgive people and be healthy and happy.”
Susane Colasanti
66.
“There isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
Mark Twain
67.
“A meaningful apology is one that communicates three R’s: regret, responsibility, and remedy.”
Beverly Engel
68.
“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you are.”
Cherie Carter-Scott
69.
“Don’t pursue something with a vengeful heart, or it will destroy you. Hate wraps a cold hand around your heart and hollows you out.”
Dannika Dark
70.
“The forgiving state of mind is a magnetic power for attracting good.”
Catherine Ponder
71.
“You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.”
Lewis B. Smedes
72.
“Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”
Corrie Ten Boom
73.
“Forgiving is easier when we understand that forgiving someone else means that we are freeing ourselves of an unnecessary burden.”
Donna Goddard
74.
“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”
Siddhārtha Gautama
75.
“Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.”
Khalil Gibran
76.
“We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love.”
Henri J.M. Nouwen
77.
“Forgiveness is the economy of the heart… forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”
Hannah More
78.
“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”
Coretta Scott King
79.
“We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.”
Samuel Butler
80.
“Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.”
Hannah Arendt
81.
“Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.”
William Arthur Ward
82.
“Learn to love someone when they least deserve it because that is when they need your love most.”
Rodolfo Costa
83.
“Of all things we mortals are called upon to do, the most difficult is forgiveness; in order to truly do it, you will probably have to behave as if you already have forgiven for quite a while before you have actually done so.”
Marion Zimmer Bradley
84.
“Forgiveness is not a one-off decision; it is a journey and a process that takes time, determination, and persistence. Forgiveness is not forgetting; it is simply denying your pain the right to control your life.”
Corallie Buchanan
85.
“A broken friendship that is mended through forgiveness can be even stronger than it once was.”
Stephen Richards
86.
“A life lived without forgiveness is a prison.”
William Arthur Ward
87.
“Forgiveness doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not an event – it’s a process”
Barry Lyga
88.
“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, 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 B. Smedes
89.
“Dear Lord, please show me everything I need to understand about forgiveness and surrender”
Elizabeth Gilbert
90.
“People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required.”
Andrew Solomon
91.
“Sometimes what a person needs most is to be forgiven.”
Jennifer McMahon
92.
“Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive.”
W. Paul Young
93.
“Life is so short. The only person you hurt when you stay angry or hold grudges is you. Forgive everyone, including yourself.”
Tom Giaquinto
94.
“Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy.”
Sebastian Barry
95.
Forgiving means you have chosen not to dwell on the matter anymore; you have moved on with your life.”
Idowu Koyenikan
96.
“Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After an injury, a scar is what makes you whole.”
China Miéville
97.
“There is a hard law. When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive. „
Alan Paton
98.
“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”
Ted Chiang
99.
“Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else; it’s something you do for yourself. To forgive is not to condone, it is to refuse to continue feeling bad about an injury.”
Jim Beaver
100.
“We forgive so long as we love.”
Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
I hope you enjoyed this collection of powerful forgiveness quotes. Do you sometimes struggle with forgiving and moving on with your life?
Stay victorious!
