quotations about shame
Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is wholly imperfect.
BULWER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Nothing is truly infamous, but what is wicked; and therefore, shame can never disturb an innocent and virtuous mind.
WILLIAM SHERLOCK
A Practical Discourse Concerning a Future Judgment
Love taught him shame, and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
JOHN DRYDEN
Cymon and Iphigenia
You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
Shame
Whoever despiseth shame, despiseth sin.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Where there is shame there is virtue.
JOHANN RIST
attributed, Day's Collacon
Where there is no shame, there is no honor.
MARTIN OPITZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
Time was when most people didn't want to admit feelings shame, but even that terribly crippling feeling is more out in the open now than it used to be. Admitting shame is admitting a flaw or a defect in oneself, as if there is something wrong with the person's being. Talking about feeling shame or guilt can make a person feel exposed and vulnerable; it can also lead to grace.
JEANIE MILEY
"Growing Edges: Talking about shame and guilt can lead to grace", Standard-Times, August 19, 2017
Though honor might possess certain advantages, yet shame had others, and not inferior.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
There's shames a man can never reason away, though he looks back and piles up reasons over them forty dozen deep. And maybe those are the shames a man never should reason away.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
The way out of shame is to own it, and go on being your best, showing up rather than hiding because of it. Don't let shame own you and keep you small.
DEBRA CAMPBELL
"Peeling the Onion of Abuse and Shame", Huffington Post, September 14, 2017
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
The only shame is to have none.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
Suddenly, my need to disappear became stronger than my need to be safe. That's what shame does.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
Sin and shame ever go together; he that would be freed from the last must be sure to shun the company of the first.
ANNE BRADSTREET
Meditations Divine and Moral
Shame wields its power when you tamp it down and ignore its existence. Expose it to the light, and it becomes a vampire at high noon.
HOWARD ENGLANDER
"It's a shame we have so much trouble talking about shame", Chicago Now, August 29, 2017
Shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us.
ANN PATCHETT
Truth and Beauty
Shame regulates differences, creates secrets, builds up a charge. The counterforce and antithesis of shame is desire, which with all its being seeks to eliminate differences, to do away with secrets, release tensions.
KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD
Autumn
Shame need not crouch
In such an earth as ours
Stand--stand erect;
The universe is yours.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Not with a Club, the Heart is broken"
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
SENECA
attributed, Day's Collacon