200+ Guilt Quotes, Sayings about Being Guilty – Inspire Quotes
Guilt Quotes and Sayings about Being Guilty
“Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn’t.” —Alan Cohen
“Secret guilt is by silence revealed.” —John Dryden
“Guilt is the very nerve of sorrow.” —Horace Bushnell
“Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.” —Saint Augustine
“He declares himself guilty who justifies himself before accusation.” —Proverb
“Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.” —Henry Fielding
“Guilt is an indulgence, it entangles you in the past.” —Gregg Hurwitz
“Guilt is the one burden human beings can’t bear alone.” —Anais Nin
“Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.” —Plautus
“Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.” —Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway.” —Isabelle Holland
“What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach–I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.” —Nathaniel Branden
“The difference between shame and guilt is the difference between “I am bad” and “I did something bad”.” —Brene Brown
“Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame’s is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.” —Brene Brown
“Maybe there’s more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.” —Veronica Roth
“In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.” —Criss Jami
“With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.” —Zig Ziglar
“Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.” —Willard Gaylin
“Guilt is anger directed at ourselves – at what we did or did not do. Resentment is anger directed at others – at what they did or did not do.” —Peter McWilliams
“People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on.” —Eckhart Tolle
“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge.” —Audre Lorde
Famous Quotes about Guilt
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” —Bruce Lee
“Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.” —Titus
“Part of the public horror of sexual irregularity so-called is due to the fact that everyone knows himself essentially guilty.” —Aleister Crowley
“I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.” —Ralph Ellison
“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.” —Immanuel Kant
“But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.” —Middlemarch , George Eliot
“I don’t believe in guilt, I believe in living on impulse as long as you never intentionally hurt another person, and don’t judge people in your life. I think you should live completely free.” —Angelina Jolie
“No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” —Alan Watts
Quotes about Guilty Conscience
“Everything was filthy. Especially my conscience.” —Ruta Sepetys
“A guilty conscience never feels secure.” —Publilius Syrus
“The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.” —John Calvin
“Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.” —Evan Esar
“No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.” ―Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity
“Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience.” —Tom Hodgkinson
“Guilt is a hunter. My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child. It’s all your fault, the voice whispered.” —Ruta Sepetys
“Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience.” —Tom Hodgkinson, The Freedom Manifesto “I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.” —Robert E. Lee
Inspirational Quotes About Overcoming Guilt
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” ―Carl Jung
“The past has no power over the present moment.” ―Eckhart Tolle
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” —Jack Kornfield
“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”—Oscar Wilde
“Lack of forgiveness causes almost all of our self-sabotaging behavior.” —Mark Victor Hansen
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ―Mahatma Gandhi
“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be any different.” ―Oprah Winfrey
“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.”—Byron Katie
“A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.” ―Albert Schweitzer
“Do you have patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?” ―Lao Tzu
“Empathy’s the antidote to shame. The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: me too.” —Brene Brown
“‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.” —Buddha
“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” —Deepak Chopra
“A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life.” ―Christopher K. Germer
“Only if you’ve been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” —Richard Nixon
“One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart.” —Linda Poindexter
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ―Thich Nhat Hanh
“Time passes unhindered. When we make mistakes, we cannot turn the clock back and try again. All we can do is use the present well.” —Dalai Lama
“To keep on trying in spite of disappointment and failure is the only way to keep young and brave. Failures become victories if they make us wise-hearted.” —Helen Keller
“With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.” ―Wayne W. Dyer
Quotes About Regret And Guilt
“But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.” —Middlemarch, George Eliot
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” —Henry David Thoreau
“Mistakes are part of life. Everyone makes them. Everyone regrets them. But some learn from them and some end up making them again. It’s up to you to decide if you’ll use your mistakes to your advantage.” —Meredith Sapp
Feeling Guilty Quotes
“When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back.” —Woody Allen
″‘Go away’, she said to the guilt… Guilt wanted her most when she least wanted it.” —Ann Brashares
“Guilt, of course, is feeling bad about one’s actions, but shame is feeling bad about oneself.” —Greg Boyle
I have never done anything which I feel guilty about or wish I had not done it.” —Amit Shah
“Guilt is a useless feeling. It’s never enough to make you change direction–only enough to make you useless.” —Daniel Nayeri, Another Faust
“Guilty feelings about clothes are totally unnecessary. A lot of people earn their living by making clothes, so you should never feel bad.” —Karl Lagerfeld
“Mostly, I was feeling guilty at the thought of it. I’d been hiding in sleazy motels, and she’d had no one to talk to.” —Tess Oliver
“I used to fell a lot of guilt about having depression but then I realized that’s a lot like feeling guilty for having brown hair.” —Jenny Lawson
“I can’t think of another type of illness where the sufferer is made to feel guilty and question their self-care when their medications need to be changed.” —Jenny Lawson
“Feel no guilt. Getting married and giving birth does not mean that you have sold your life away to perfectly healthy people who can get their own damn socks.” —Jennifer Crusie
“I was ready to join [Edward’s] family. The fear and guilt and anguish I was feeling now had taught me that much… The next time something came at us, I would be ready. An asset, not a liability.” —Stephenie Meyer
For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and satisfied, drove on into the night. —Douglas Adams
I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. —Brennan Manning
“I know I did wrong. No one can feel it more sensibly than I do…Still, in looking back, calmly, on the events of my life, I feel that the slave woman ought not to be judged by the same standard as others.” —Linda Brent
“They felt they had you fenced off so that you could not do what you did. Now they’re mad because deep down in them they believe that they made you do it. When people feel that way, you can’t reason with ‘em.” —Richard Wright
Guilt is the sum total of: All the negative feelings we have ever had about ourselves! Any form of self-hatred, self-rejection, and feelings of worthlessness, sinfulness, inferiority, incompetence, failure, or emptiness. The feeling that there are things in us that are lacking or missing or incomplete.” —Kenneth Wapnick
The difference between guilt and shame is very clear – in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. A person feels guilty because he did something wrong. A person feels shame because he is something wrong. We may feel guilty because we lied to our mother. We may feel shame because we are not the person our mother wanted us to be.” —Lewis B. Smedes
“Life passes. Then comes the depression. That feeling that you’ll never be right again. The fear that these outbreaks will become more familiar, or worse, never go away. You’re so tired from fighting that you start to listen to all the little lies your brain tells you. The ones that say you’re a drain on your family. The ones that say that if you were stronger or better this wouldn’t be happening to you.” —Jenny Lawson
A terrible, painful sadness clutched at Ellen. More than ever before, she felt that her life—the best part of it, at least, the part that was fresh and fun—was behind her. Recognizing the sensation made her feel guilty, for she read it as proof that she was an unsatisfactory mother, an unsatisfied wife. She hated her life, and hated herself for hating it. She thought of a line from a song Billy played on the stereo: “I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.” —Peter Benchley
Shame is closely related to guilt, but there is a key qualitative difference. No audience is needed for feelings of guilt, no one else need know, for the guilty person is his own judge. Not so for shame. The humiliation of shame requires disapproval or ridicule by others. If no one ever learns of a misdeed there will be no shame, but there still might be guilt. Of course, there may be both. The distinction between shame and guilt is very important, since these two emotions may tear a person in opposite directions. The wish to relieve guilt may motivate a confession, but the wish to avoid the humiliation of shame may prevent it.” —Paul Ekman
Best Quotes about Guilt
“Survival had its price: guilt.” —Ruta Sepetys
“Thou art the man, Thou the accursed polluter of this land.” —Sophocles
“Guilt management can be just important as time management for mothers.” —Sheryl Sandberg
“He was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t guilty.” —Walter Dean Myers
″The guilt on him, the hand of God pressing down on him.” —Alice Sebold
“Yet how much really could you owe other people? Was it endless? ” —Gregory Maguire
“If you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. —Alan Moore
“People come here to prosper. You have nothing here. What have you accomplished?” —Sonia Nazario
“So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.” —Shakespeare
“This is the first time I ever felt really actually in danger of hell.” —Stephen King
“I didn’t say you threw it. I just said ‘Run.’ You should’ve run.” —Walter Dean Myers
“That’s true, but in reality it depends on how the jury sees the case.” —Walter Dean Myers
“It was you who did it, Lily. You didn’t mean it, but it was you.” —Sue Monk Kidd
“Guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people.” —Tara Westover
“Where were my instincts? Isn’t the female of the species hardwired to recognize her own offspring?” —Kathryn Kennish
“We were a Family, a happy Family, and we stayed that way until I stopped showing up.” —James Frey
“And you told me you wanted children. That more than anything, you wanted to be a mother.” —Nicholas Sparks
“I want to confess everything, to hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else.” —Laurie Halse Anderson
“Why am I not dead? I should be dead. It would best for everyone if I were dead.” —Suzanne Collins
“Part of me felt guilty. Was it selfish that I wanted to live, even though my parents were gone?” —Ruta Sepetys
“The tyrannous and bloody act is done, the archest deed of piteous massacre that ever yet this land was guilty of.” —Shakespeare
“I’m well aware that at the back of my mind, thumping quietly like a drumbeat, are the twin horrors of Guilt and Panic.” —Sophie Kinsella
“O, would to God that the inclusive verge of golden metal that must round my brow were red-hot steel to sear me to the brains!” —Shakespeare
“In defense of her wounded pride he would have torn the offender to pieces with his own hands. And here that offender was he himself.” —Boris Pasternak
“Jason: Anything you or the children want in exile, let me know; I’ll gladly furnish it … Medea: The presents of the wicked are pure poison.” —Euripides
“The single mothers who are coming to this country, and the children who follow them, are changing the face of immigration to the United States.” —Sonia Nazario
“I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open.” —Rainer Maria Rilke
“All the running, the hiding, the lies, the killing, for what? The endless circle of revenge: answering pain by inflicting pain. Why did I do it?” —Ruta Sepetys
“I was mighty down-hearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow.” —Mark Twain
“Why mundanes always insist on taking responsibility for things that aren’t their fault is a mystery to me. You didn’t force that cocktail down his idiotic throat.” —Cassandra Clare
“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.” —Anna Sewell
“We’d had three assemblies last year alone, and every time I waited for a giant spotlight to come out of the auditorium ceiling and shine on my seat.” —Tess Oliver
“I told myself I should be glad about it; it was like she wasn’t even there, and isn’t that what I’d always wanted? But still, I felt bad.” —Wendelin Van Draanen
“I should have been there for her. She was so totally alone. She should have been there for me. I was so totally alone. We should never have been separated.” —Tess Oliver
“It’s no fun picking on you Louis; you’re so guilty, it’s like throwing darts at a glob of jello, there’s no satisfying hits, just quivering, the darts just blop in and vanish.” —Tony Kushner
“This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance.” —Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Overcome your guilt. Care, but not too much. Take responsibility, but don’t blame yourself. Protect, save, help- but know when to give up. They’re precarious ledges to walk. How do I do it?” —Brandon Sanderson
“It was obvious to everyone that Mafatu was useless upon the sea. He would never earn his proper place in the tribe. Stout Heart- how bitter the name must taste upon his father’s lips!” —Armstrong Sperry
“After all, guilt and remorse were worthless emotions, weren’t they? Well, I knew they weren’t; but I had no time for them. Forward motion; that was the key. Run as fast as you can and don’t look back.” —Jordan Belfort
“Maybe, if I wear the glasses long enough, I can be like her. I can see what she saw. I can be both of us at once so no one will have to miss her, most of all me.” —Jennifer Niven
″‘I am glad you have come,’ Jesus said. Daniel could say nothing at all. For a moment he was afraid. Only when the man turned away and his eyes no longer held his own, could he breathe freely again.” —Jean Craighead George
“The charred black spot where Amy’s car had landed sat directly below. It was as if my own jeep had turned against me, breaking down there on purpose to remind me that I was a jerk. Not that I needed reminding.” —Tess Oliver
“My scream implodes inside me. Mother looks back, sees the dagger lying there, and grabs it. The thing howls in outrage. She’s going to fight it. She’s going to be alright. […] In one swift motion, she raises the dagger and plunges it into herself.” —Libba Bray
“If you don’t testify, you’ll just make the tie between you and King stronger in the mind of the jury. I think you have to testify. And the way you spend the rest of your youth might well depend on how much the jury believes you.” —Walter Dean Myers
“Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.” —Nathaniel Hawthorne
“She gathers her papers and moves away as STEVE, arms still outstretched, turns toward the camera. His image is in black and white, and the grain is nearly broken. It looks like one of the pictures they use for psychological testing, or some strange beast, a monster.” —Walter Dean Myers
“Negrophobes exist. It is not hatred of the Negro, however, that motivates them; they lack the courage for that, or they have lost it. Hate is not inborn; it has to be constantly cultivated, to be brought into being, in conflict with more or less recognized guilt complexes. ” —Frantz Fanon
“God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards.” —Francis Chan
“I don’t care if you come home at all. It was the last thing I’d said to her. Before I ran away. Before she came after me. Before I saw her die in a vision. […] And then the scream I’ve been holding back comes pouring out of me… ” —Libba Bray
“I stand in front of the mirror and study my face.…It is the face of a sad, lonely girl something bad has happened to. I wonder if my face will ever look the same again, or if I’ll always see it in my reflection – Finch, Eleanor, loss, heartache, guilt, death.” —Jennifer Niven
“I knowed very well why [the words] wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all.” —Mark Twain
“I shed my guilt when I accepted my decision on its own terms, without endlessly prosecuting old grievances, without weighing his sins against mine. Without thinking of my father at all. I learned to accept my decision for my own sake, because of me, not because of him. Because I needed it, not because he deserved it.” —Tara Westover
“I knew that Phoebe was convinced that her mother was kidnapped because it was impossible for Phoebe to imagine that her mother could leave for any other reason. I wanted to call Phoebe and say that maybe her mother had gone looking for something, maybe her mother was unhappy, maybe there was nothing Phoebe could do about it.” —Sharon Creech
“That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise. I would meet her saying, ‘Mother, forgive. Please forgive,’ and she would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame. She would tell me this for the first ten thousand years.” —Sue Monk Kidd
“And when he couldn’t sleep, he retired to his study and the laudanum bottle that had become his constant companion. Sometimes I’d find him asleep in his chair, the dogs at his feet, the brown bottle close at hand […] he’d grown thinner, whittled down by grief and opium. And I could only stand by, helpless and mute, the cause of it all.” —Libba Bray
“Beg forgiveness, indeed! After fourteen years! I see no purpose to it. The dead are dead; those who remain behind cannot forget. But then, just as I am about to close my heart against Ann, I recollect my part in the madness that came to our village in 1692. And I know I am as guilty as Ann or any of the girls in that circle of accusers.” —Ann Rinaldi
“Guilt struck Little-Faith on the head with a great club that was in his hand and knocked him flat to the ground, where he lay bleeding profusely and in danger of dying. The thieves just stood by watching him bleed to death, but then heard someone coming on the road. They were afraid it might be Great-Grace who lives in the town of Good-Confidence. They quickly departed and left this good man to fend for himself.” —John Bunyan
“She found herself looking at Lane as if he were a stranger, or a poster advertising a brand of linoleum, across the aisle of a subway car. Again she felt the trickle of disloyalty and guilt, which seemed to be the order of the day, and reacted to it by reaching over to cover Lane’s hand with her own. She withdrew her hand almost immediately and used it to pick her cigarette out of the ashtray. ” —J. D. Salinger
“And then it was not a toy lion, but a real lion, The Real Lion, just as she had seen him on the mountain beyond the world’s end. And a smell of all sweet-smelling things there are filled the room. But there was some trouble in Jill’s mind, though she could not think what it was… The Lion told her to repeat the signs, and she found that she had forgotten them all. At that, a great horror came over her.” —C.S. Lewis
“We teach girls shame. ‘Close your legs. Cover yourself.’ We make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. They grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up — and this is the worst thing we do to girls — they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Guilt Quotes and Sayings
“Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn’t.” —Alan Cohen
“Guilt is the very nerve of sorrow.” —Horace Bushnell
“Guilt is a rope that wears thin.” —Ayn Rand
“Successful guilt is the bane of society.” —Publilius Syrus
“Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.” —Erma Bombeck
“The guilty think all talk is of themselves.” —Chaucer
“Guilt is abscent when the act is justified.” —Unknown
“Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion.” —Lynn Crilly
“He declares himself guilty who justifies himself before accusation.” —Proverb
“Guilt is oftentimes the strongest witness against itself.” —Edward Counsel
“Guilt hath very quick ears to an accusation.” —Henry Fielding
“Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.” —Saint Augustine
“Where guilt is, rage and courage doth abound.” —Ben Jonson
“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.” —Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Guilt is always hungry, don’t let it consume you.” —Terri Guillemets
“Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.” —Voltaire
“Guilt is an indulgence, it entangles you in the past.” —Gregg Hurwitz
“People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.” —Rust Cohle
“Guilt is anything you did and fear others to know about.” —Mohammad
“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” ―Voltaire
“My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.” ―Franz Kafka
“Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion” ―Lynn Crilly, Hope with Eating Disorders
“No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.” —Stefan Zweig
“Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great.” —Samuel Johnson
“There is no client as scary as an innocent man.” ―Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer
“Guilt is something small people feel when they run out of excuses for their behavior.” —Gaius Baltar
“Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.” ―Veronica Roth, Insurgent
“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” ―Voltaire, Zadig
“Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway.” —Isabelle Holland
“So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.” ―William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach–I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.” —Nathaniel Branden
“Guilt is the source of sorrows, the avenging fiend that follows us behind with whips and stings.” —Nicholas Rowe
“Guilt is really self- condemnation and self-invalidation of our worth and value as a human being.” —David R. Hawkins
“When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.” ―Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
“The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.” —Jodi Picoult
“There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.” ―Jill Churchill
“Guilt is a useless feeling. It’s never enough to make you change direction–only enough to make you useless.” —Daniel Nayeri
“You’re making yourself too important. Guilt comes from feeling we’re at the center of the universe. We’re not.” —Gloria Whelan
“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action.” —Audre Lorde
“Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience.” —Tom Hodgkinson
“The guilt you feel finally comes to an end when you fully express how it came into your consciousness.” —Luke Garne
“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action.” ―Audre Lorde
“It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.” ―Criss Jami
“It’s not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts.”―Mother Teresa
“Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mood, fills the light air with visionary terrors, and shapeless forms of fear.” —Junius
“Like hatred, guilt can’t be locked in the silence of forgetting, without taking part of your soul with it.” —Shannon L. Alder
“Guilt is a manifestation of condemnation or aversion towards oneself, which does not understand the changing transformative quality of mind.” —Joseph Goldstein
“Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.” —William Congreve
“Guilt’s just your ego’s way of tricking you into thinking that you’re making moral progress. Don’t fall for it, my dear.” —Elizabeth Gilbert
“Guilt is a lazy feeling that takes no action; the wings of integrity are the only thing that sets it free.” —Shannon L. Alder
“Guilt is a waste of time unless you learn how to be more loving the next time a similar situation presents itself.” —Annette Vaillancourt
“(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.” ― J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
“There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.” —Sabaa Tahir
“As moms, we are in it together – raising the future. We are a tribe of future makers. So let’s support each other.” ―Marissa Hermer
“Maybe there’s more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.” ―Veronica Roth, Divergent
“He that is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others: So they will try to reduce all others to their own level.” —Charles James Fox
“Guilt isn’t always a rational thing, Clio realized. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.” ―Maureen Johnson, Girl at Sea
“Sometimes I just want to paint the words “It’s my fault” across my forehead to save people the time of being pissed off at me.” ―Christina Westover
“You won’t be free from guilt if you are constantly replaying the negative memories of your past. If you’re going to replay anything, replay your victories! —Joel Osteen
“Guilt can interfere with our desires to move forward, to heal properly and to become a person who has the mental health and means of proper recompense.” —Bryant McGill
“Guilt is to danger, what fire is to gunpowder; a man need not fear to walk among many barrels of powder, if he have no fire about him.” —John Flavel
“I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself.” ―Rosamund Lupton, Sister
“We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates’ faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects.” ―Anna Godbersen, The Luxe
“Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.” ―Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“And yet, sometimes facts are no more than pitiful consequences, because guilt does not reside in our acts but in the intentions that give rise to our act. Everything turns on our intentions.” ―Sándor Márai, Embers
“And when I look down, even now, at the extra skin on my belly, it’s a reminder that I’ve done something spectacular. It’s a reminder that I’m a superhero. And I’m proud of it.” ―Kristen Bell
“Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.” —Bishop Robert South
“Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.” —Edmund Burke
“Guilt has always its horrors and solicitudes; and, to make it yet more shameful and detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those to whom nothing could give influence or weight but their power of betraying.” —Samuel Johnson
“Guilt is the sum total of: All the negative feelings we have ever had about ourselves! Any form of self-hatred, self-rejection, and feelings of worthlessness, sinfulness, inferiority, incompetence, failure, or emptiness. The feeling that there are things in us that are lacking or missing or incomplete.” —Ken Wapnick
“Guilt is a poor, helpless, dependent being. Without the alliance of able, diligent, and let me add, fortunate fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty culprit be obstinately silent, it forms a deadly presumption against him; if he speaks, talking tends only to his discovery, and his very defence often furnishes the materials for his conviction.” —Junius
“Make friends with guilt. Guilt is a beautiful emotion that alerts us when something is wrong so that we may achieve peace with our conscience. Without conscience there would be no morality. So we can greet guilt cordially and with acceptance, just as we do all other emotions. After we respond to guilt, it has done its job and we can release it.” —Glenn R. Schiraldi
“Releasing guilt is like removing a huge weight from your shoulders. Guilt is released through the empowering thought of love and respect for yourself. Let go of standards of perfection and refuse to use up the precious currency of your life, the now, with thoughts that continue to frustrate and weaken you. Instead, vow to be better than you used to be, which is the true test of nobility.” —Wayne Dyer