forgiveness Quotes

“I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused.”

“Forgiveness does not mean excusing.”

“In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s, we do not accept them easily enough.”

“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

“But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.”

“Why should the injured, the still bleeding, bear the onus of forgiveness?”

“Of the affairs of love ... my only advice is to be honest. That’s your most powerful tool to unlock a heart or gain forgiveness.”

“I could forgive the boy, now, if he’d committed a million sins!”

“‘There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,’ returned the nephew. ‘Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!‘”

“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

“Tom opened his eyes, and looked upon his master. ‘Ye poor miserable critter!’ he said, ‘there ain’t no more ye can do! I forgive ye, with all my soul!’ and he fainted entirely away.”

“To understand is to forgive.”

Dorothy said nothing. Oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he had done his best. So she forgave him. As he said, he was a good man, even if he was a bad Wizard.

“Where have you been?” she cried. “Damn you, where have you been?” She took a few steps toward Schmendrick, but she was looking beyond him, at the unicorn. When she tried to get by, the magician stood in her way. “You don’t talk like that,” he told her, still uncertain that Molly had recognized the unicorn. “Don’t you know how to behave, woman? You don’t curtsy, either.” But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. “Where have you been?” Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shrilling beetle, but this time it was the unicorn’s old dark eyes that looked down. “I am here now,” she said at last. Molly laughed with her lips flat. “And what good is it to me that you’re here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?” With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. “I wish you had never come. Why did you come now?” The tears began to slide down the sides of her nose. The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, “She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world.” “She would be.” Molly sniffed. “It would be the last unicorn in the world to come to Molly Grue.” She reached up then to lay her hand on the unicorn’s cheek; but both of them flinched a little, and the touch came to rest on on the swift, shivering place under the jaw. Molly said, “It’s all right. I forgive you.”

“It’s never too late to start over.”

“Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me. But if I saw her, I wouldn’t recognize her.”

“Thou shalt forgive me! cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!”

“It wasn’t your fault. In your position I would have done the same thing. I don’t blame you, and I’m glad you survived.”

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down And ask of thee forgiveness.

“Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others.”

“We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker’s, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.”

“I have learned to accept my responsibility and to forgive myself first, then to apologize to anyone injured by my misreckoning.”

“All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive.”

“You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. I see that now.”

“She loves you, Robert. Why should she not forgive?”

“Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission.”

“At that moment, something shifted sweetly inside him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over.”

“As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free.”

“The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance.”

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”

“Every human being, after all, is possessed with the undeniable urge to confess his sins. Religions were built on such things. And kingdoms were conquered with the promise that all sins would be forgiven afterward.”

″‘Then be off home as quick as you can,’ said the Faun, ‘and – c-can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?’ ‘Why, of course I can,’ said Lucy, shaking him heartily by the hand. ‘And I do hope you won’t get into dreadful trouble on my account.‘”

“Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.”

“I tried to do as she would wish it. The Lord will pardon me and excuse the conduct of them He sent me.”

“It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept - before they will forgive.”

“But - but the greatest way to witness is by walking that straight and narrow and also realizing that you’re going to mess up. That’s what grace is for. We’re going to fall, but we’ve got to get back up. And you’ve got to improve. And that’s what I’m all about.”

“When you’re living in the reality of the forgiveness you been extended, you just don’t get angry with others easily. I suspect our sense of entitlement to anger is directly proportional to our perception of our own relative innocence.”

“There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.”

“Do not assess a man who has nothing, and thus falsify your pen.”

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack. It is about letting go of another person’s throat. Forgiveness does not establish relationship. It is to release you from something that will eat you alive, that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly.”

“You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness and give him over to me so that my love will burn from his life every vestige of corruption.”

“It would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down out throats, Harry, because in case you haven’t noticed, Ron and I are on your side.”

“All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arms around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.”

“She waved at all the people on the train & later, when she saw they didn’t wave back, she started singing songs to herself & it went that way the whole day & she couldn’t remember having a better time in her life.”

“Forgive me…for everything…I have done…A─ a wiser father…may have done differently. I am not…wise.”

“Marriage, each of them realized intuitively, was about compromise and forgiveness. It was about balance, where one person complemented the other.”

“But when Scrubb shook hands with Jill, he said, ‘So long, Jill. Sorry I’ve been a funk and so ratty. I hope you get safe home,’ and Jill said, ‘So long, Eustace. And I’m sorry I’ve been such a pig.’ And this was the first time they had ever used Christian names, because one didn’t do it at school.”

″‘Lord King, slay me speedily as a great traitor: for by my silence I have destroyed your son.’ And [Drinian] told [Caspian] the story. Then Caspian caught up a battle-axe and rushed upon the Lord Drinian to kill him, and Drinian stood still as a stock for the death blow. But when the axe was raised, Caspian suddenly threw it away and cried out, ‘I have lost my queen and my son: shall I lose my friend also?’ And he fell upon the Lord Drinian’s neck and embraced him and both wept, and their friendship was not broken.”

″‘Please, your Majesty,’ said Shasta to King Edmund, ‘I was no traitor, really I wasn’t. And I couldn’t help hearing your plans. But I’d never have dreamed of telling them to your enemies.’ ‘I know now that you were no traitor, boy,’ said King Edmund, laying his hand on Shasta’s head. ‘But if you would not be taken for one, another time try not to hear what’s meant for other ears. But all’s well.‘”

“Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I’m afraid even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarreling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.”

“One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship.”

“You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.”

“Tirian, with his head against Jewel’s flank, slept as soundly as if he were in his royal bed at Cair Paravel, till the sound of a gong beating awoke him and he sat up and saw that there was firelight on the far side of the stable and knew that the hour had come. ‘Kiss me, Jewel,’ he said. ‘For certainly this is our last night on earth. And if ever I offended against you in any matter great or small, forgive me now.’ ‘Dear King,’ said the Unicorn, ‘I could almost wish you had, so that I might forgive it. Farewell. We have known great joys together. If Aslan gave me my choice I would choose no other life than the life I have had and no other death than the one we go to.‘”

“The deed is done and taking another life cannot change it. Instead, let us forgive as God would have us do. It is not right that we hold a grudge in our hearts. The doer of the act is going to find it difficult indeed to live with himself. His only peace of mind will be when he goes to God for forgiveness.” Let us not stand in the way but instead give prayers that he may find his peace. ”

“God alone knows how much I have suffered; and He, I trust, will forgive me. If I am permitted to have my children, I intend to be a good mother, and to live in such a manner that people cannot treat me with contempt.”

“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm’s way.”

“I would say to you: Would you ever forgive me for that accident, for the death of your sister; would you ever forgive me, for I could never forgive myself!”

“What if I forgave myself? What if I forgave myself even though I’d done some things I shouldn’t have? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything different from what I’d done? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if all those things I shouldn’t have done were what got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”

“Maybe you will never be able to forgive me, but I wanted you to know I had the best intentions-and I still love you in my own fucked-up way.”

“You smart-aleck! You have no more right to spit on his religion than you have a right to spit on my religion! Or my lack of it!”

“He was a terrible person. He died a hard death. So maybe. A queen can forgive her vanquished foe. It isn’t easy, it doesn’t count if it’s easy, it’s the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet. Peace, at last. Isn’t that what the Kaddish asks for?”

“O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you!”

“Every twenty-four God has a fresh new supply of grace, of favor, of wisdom, of forgiveness.”

“Prayer is a way of asking for something. It is the medium of miracles. But the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything.”

“To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you.”

“Not really. I remember what I would not, and forget what I should not. Forgive me.”

“Forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.”

“I have this theory: If you forgive someone, they can’t hurt you anymore.”

″ I did not even think to think what Mama needed to be forgiven for. ”

“Yes, I would become upset when you forgot to take out the garbage, but that is not a real argument. That is nothing. It passes like a leaf blown by the window. It is over and done and it is forgotten quickly.”

“All those who were most wronged will forgive her and welcome her back into the congregation. But who will forgive me?”

“Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?”

“When we received forgiveness instead of judgment, we, too, were made ready to forgive the brethren. What God did to us, we then owed to others.”

“Be slow to anger and quick to forgive, and you will have friends for as long as you live.”

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.”

“Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is actually a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them.”

“If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.”

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”

“I would like for you to be patient and forgiving of others-and when you are impatient, to be forgiving of yourself.”

“I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”

“You can love them, forgive them, want good things for them…but still move on without them.”

“Forgiveness is part of the treasure you need to craft your falcon wings and return To your true realm of divine freedom.”

“But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, ‘I forgive you, Pa.‘”

″‘I will overlook your tardiness this one time. But do not let it happen again.’ Everybody knew the big boys would be tardy again. Mr. Corse could not punish them because they could thrash him, and that was what the meant to do.”

“Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment.”

“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.”

“Time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance.”

“How can you forgive if you can’t remember to forget?”

“The first thing was their kindness. How amazingly widespread it was. They had taken responsibility for her, nursed and clothed her. Someone had given up her bed, probably Beatie; no one had complained when she was snappish and rude about Dovey’s best clothes, about the lack of sanitation; no one had condemned her unsympathetic attitude towards Gibbie.”

“I’m lonelier and wiser now, and I know it isn’t cruelty or shame that characterizes the human race. It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are.”

“Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions.”

“I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them.”

“Well done, Pinocchio! To reward you for your good heart I will forgive you for all that is past. Boys who minister tenderly to their parents and assist them in their misery and infirmities, are deserving of great praise and affection...”

“Why must the young die and the old wrecks go on living? Why do little children die? I shall never, never forgive God for that, do you hear?”

“Everyone has the same hunger, son. We must learn to forgive”

“Forgiveness releases to the Lord your need for them to be punished or corrected, giving it to the only One who can do this with right measures of justice and mercy.”

“I am a soul who likes the concept of forgiveness . . . until I am a hurting soul who doesn’t.”

“Let it be a settled fact: It is God’s will to heal you. You have a right to healing as well as forgiveness when you believe. God said: I am the Lord who heals you (Ex. 15:26). If God said this, and God cannot lie, He meant it. What God says is true. So, healing is yours. Healing is part of the gospel and is to be preached throughout all the world and to every creature, to the end of the world (Mark 16:15; Matt. 28:20). Being part of the gospel, the divine blessing of physical healing is for all.”

“My ability to heal cannot be conditional on them wanting my forgiveness but only on my willingness to give it.”

“Forgiveness is the weapon. Our choices moving forward are the battlefield. Moving on is the journey.”

“I forgive this person for how their actions back then are still impacting me now. And whatever my feelings don’t yet allow for, the blood of Jesus will surely cover.”

“I am blessed. I am prosperous. I am successful.” “I am victorious. I am talented. I am creative.” “I am wise. I am healthy. I am in shape.” “I am energetic. I am happy. I am positive.” “I am passionate. I am strong. I am confident.” “I am secure. I am beautiful. I am attractive.” “I am valuable. I am free. I am redeemed.” “I am forgiven. I am anointed. I am accepted.” “I am approved. I am prepared. I am qualified.” “I am motivated. I am focused. I am disciplined.” “I am determined. I am patient. I am kind.” “I am generous. I am excellent. I am equipped.” “I am empowered. I am well able.” “I am a child of the Most High God.”

“If you do hate your ex, I’d like you to consider the damage you might be doing to yourself. Look, I have heard some horror stories from my girlfriends. Things I would never tell my friends to just forgive and forget. But I think you can focus on letting go of hating someone first and then forgive the person on your own time. Because carrying hate is a heavy load, but offering forgiveness is freeing.”

“Maybe He’ll get what he deserves. Maybe Not. Maybe I’ll never find it in my heart to forgive him. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that,either. All those maybes swimming around my head make me think that “maybe” could just be another word for hope.”

“Life is not a series of pathetic, meaningles actions. Some of them are so far from pathetic, so far from meaningless as to be beyond reason, maybe beyond forgiveness.”

“AN ELDER was asked by a certain soldier if God would forgive a sinner. And he said to him: Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away? The soldier replied and said: No. I will mend it and put it back on. The elder said to him: If you take care of your cloak, will God not be merciful to His own image?”

″ ‘Cuckoo,’ she said reproachfully, ‘I didn’t think you were so hardhearted. I have been so unhappy about you, and I was so pleased to hear your voice again, for I thought I had killed you, or hurt you very badly; and I didn’t mean to hurt you, cuckoo. I was sorry the moment I had done it, dreadfully sorry. Dear cuckoo, won’t you forgive me?’ ”

“The heart is resilient and forgiving, it is the mind that causes us stress.”

“With my past forgiven, my present secure, and my future irrevocably guaranteed, why shouldn’t I be enthusiastically optimistic?”

“We forgive when we no longer need to blame; we forget when we no longer need to remember.”

″‘I forgive you, Sir Knight,’ said Rowena, ‘as a Christian.’ ‘That means,’ said Wamba, ‘that she does not forgive him at all.‘”

“I Don’t Even Like Him—How Can I Pray for Him? Have you ever been so mad at your husband that the last thing you wanted to do was pray for him? So have I. It’s hard to pray for someone when you’re angry or he’s hurt you. But that’s exactly what God wants us to do. If He asks us to pray for our enemies, how much more should we be praying for the person with whom we have become one and are supposed to love? But how do we get past the unforgiveness and critical attitude? The first thing to do is be completely honest with God. In order to break down the walls in our hearts and smash the barriers that stop communication, we have to be totally up-front with the Lord about our feelings. We don’t have to “pretty it up” for Him. He already knows the truth. He just wants to see if we’re willing to admit it and confess it as disobedience to His ways. If so, He”

“On the whole he is not a bad pupil. I wouldn’t want to make him miserable because of a single prank. I know what it means to be a young Roman to be a pupil in the Xanthos School. And I hope you know it too.”

“Maria was not the kind of person who bore malice for injuries, and she was certainly not the kind of kidnapper who habitually stole babies from their heartbroken mothers, for the mere cynical pleasure of hearing them scream.”

″...since it was the first time that he had ever been late, he was not punished.”

“Return to your parents, fall on your knees before them, and, like a sensible and dutiful lad, implore their pardon for your imprudence.”

So he went home with Pooh, and watched him for quite a long time ... and all the time he was watching, Tigger was tearing round the Forest making loud yapping noises for Rabbit. And at last a very Small and Sorry Rabbit heard him. And the Small and Sorry Rabbit rushed through the mist at the noise, and it suddenly turned into Tigger; a Friendly Tigger, a Grand Tigger, a Large and Helpful Tigger, a Tigger who bounced, if he bounced at all, in just the beautiful way a Tigger ought to bounce. “Oh, Tigger, I am glad to see you,” cried Rabbit.

“Oh, they meant to be—I know they meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when people mean to be good to you, you don’t mind very much when they’re not quite—always.”

“I couldn’t eat anything. My heart is broken. You’ll feel remorse of conscience someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember when the time comes that I forgive you.”

“I just said as politely as I could, ‘I have no hard feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did not mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the mantle of oblivion.’ That was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn’t it, Marilla?” “I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry’s head

“It makes you feel very virtuous when you forgive people, doesn’t it?”

“And I thee,” answered Hester Prynne, “for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly for thine own! Forgive, and leave his further retribution to the Power that claims it!

It is not so! There might be good for thee, and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged, and hast it at thy will to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only privilege? Wilt thou reject that priceless benefit?”

“My dear, don’t let the sun go down upon your anger.”

“Forgive each other, help each other, and begin again tomorrow.”

“My little Pearl,” said he, feebly,—and there was a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay, now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with the child,—“dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt?”

Jo wanted to lay her head down on that motherly bosom, and cry her grief and anger all away, but tears were an unmanly weakness, and she felt so deeply injured that she really couldn’t quite forgive yet. So she winked hard, shook her head, and said gruffly because Amy was listening, “It was an abominable thing, and she doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.”

“I let the sun go down on my anger. I wouldn’t forgive her, and today, if it hadn’t been for Laurie, it might have been too late! How could I be so wicked?”

Amy opened her eyes, and held out her arms, with a smile that went straight to Jo’s heart. Neither said a word, but they hugged one another close, in spite of the blankets, and everything was forgiven and forgotten in one hearty kiss.

“That’s the interferingest chap I ever see, but I forgive him and do hope Mrs. March is coming right away,” said Hannah, with an air of relief, when Jo told the good news.

“I have forgiven the world for the love of you; now that I see you, young and with a promising future,—now that I think of all that may result to you in the good fortune of such a disclosure, I shudder at any delay, and tremble lest I should not assure to one as worthy as yourself the possession of so vast an amount of hidden wealth.”

What! you do not believe in God when he is striking you dead? you will not believe in him, who requires but a prayer, a word, a tear, and he will forgive?

“Tell me, may I shake hands with you, saying, ‘Beauchamp, acknowledge you have injured me, and retain my friendship,’ or must I simply propose to you a choice of arms?”

I say, and proclaim it publicly, that you were justified in revenging yourself on my father, and I, his son, thank you for not using greater severity.

You are a generous man, Albert, but perhaps you may be blinded by pride or resentment; if you refuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right to offer you, I will say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life of your mother at the hands of a man whose father was allowed by your father to die in all the horrors of poverty and despair.

I knew nothing of this engagement, of this love, yet I, her father, forgive you, for I see that your grief is real and deep; and besides my own sorrow is too great for anger to find a place in my heart. But you see that the angel whom you hoped for has left this earth—she has nothing more to do with the adoration of men. Take a last farewell, sir, of her sad remains; take the hand you expected to possess once more within your own, and then separate yourself from her forever.

“I am he whom you sold and dishonored—I am he whose betrothed you prostituted—I am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune—I am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger—I am he whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you, because he hopes to be forgiven—I am Edmond Dantès!”

“I have often thought with a bitter joy that these riches, which would make the wealth of a dozen families, will be forever lost to those men who persecute me. This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity. But now I have forgiven the world for the love of you; now that I see you, young and with a promising future,—now that I think of all that may result to you in the good fortune of such a disclosure, I shudder at any delay, and tremble lest I should not assure to one as worthy as yourself the possession of so vast an amount of hidden wealth.”

“Rise,” said the count, “your life is safe; the same good fortune has not happened to your accomplices—one is mad, the other dead. Keep the 50,000 francs you have left—I give them to you. The 5,000,000 you stole from the hospitals has been restored to them by an unknown hand. And now eat and drink; I will entertain you tonight. Vampa, when this man is satisfied, let him be free.”

Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon for provoking it;

“I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen. You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I’m sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never think she’ll be happy. It is out of the question my going to see her, however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.”

“I am glad to believe you have repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways are different ways, none the less.”

″‘I know he has a bad nature,’ said Catherine: ‘he’s your son. But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him.‘”

“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.”

“To kill a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make better sport for you when he is grown. Baloo has spoken in his behalf. Now to Baloo’s word I will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile from here, if ye will accept the man’s cub according to the Law. Is it difficult?”

“Anybody can be forgiven for being scared in the night,”

“Not on earth, but up yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don’ blame them, they don’ blame them!”

And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....’

“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.”

And that promise of marriage when her daughter, Natalya Yegorovna, was alive?.. I know all about it! But I see that’s a delicate matter and I am an ass; forgive me.

“What’s the most offensive is not their lying—one can always forgive lying—lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth—what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying....”

At his sick wife’s bedside he had for the first time in his life given way to that feeling of sympathetic suffering always roused in him by the sufferings of others, and hitherto looked on by him with shame as a harmful weakness. And pity for her, and remorse for having desired her death, and most of all, the joy of forgiveness, made him at once conscious, not simply of the relief of his own sufferings, but of a spiritual peace he had never experienced before. He suddenly felt that the very thing that was the source of his sufferings had become the source of his spiritual joy; that what had seemed insoluble while he was judging, blaming, and hating, had become clear and simple when he forgave and loved.

What generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end to all the misunderstanding with his sister—simply by holding out his hand at the right minute and looking at her like that....

“It’s a good lie—it’s a good lie—I won’t let it grieve me.”

“I acted mighty mean today, Becky, and I’m so sorry. I won’t ever, ever do that way again, as long as ever I live—please make up, won’t you?”

He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was on the contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Christian law that he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to forgive and love his enemies; but a glad feeling of love and forgiveness for his enemies filled his heart.

“Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander.”

“I told you yesterday that I was not coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first thing I’ve said is to ask forgiveness....”

“What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a rouble to spare. I have no sins. God must forgive me without that. He knows how I have suffered.... And if He won’t forgive me, I don’t care!”