GUILT QUOTES

quotations about guilt

Guilt quote

The guilty think all talk is of themselves.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

The Canterbury Tales

Tags: Geoffrey Chaucer


I figured out long ago that guilt was like mothers. Everyone in the world had at least one. And it was passed down like a torch to the next generation.

ERMA BOMBECK

Aunt Erma's Cope Book

Tags: Erma Bombeck


And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hamlet

Tags: William Shakespeare


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.

ROBERT SOUTH

"On the Danger of Presumptuous Sins", Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions


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. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.

AUDRE LORDE

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches


Let us not search for the guilty ones only among others, let us speak the bitter truth: we are all guilty ... each and every one of us.

MAXIM GORKY

Untimely Thoughts

Tags: Maxim Gorky


Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice to itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.

SENECA

Seneca's Morals by Way of Abstract

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Nothing that is obtained through guilt can be permanently profitable.

CICERO

attributed, Day's Collacon

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There's no problem so awful, that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse.

BILL WATTERSON

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Tags: Bill Watterson


He who flies proves himself guilty.

DANISH PROVERB


Guilt is a rope that wears thin.

AYN RAND

Atlas Shrugged

Tags: Ayn Rand


Guilt is always present to the mind (of the guilty).

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims

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To spare the guilty is to injure the innocent.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus

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Guilt is like a gauge or light on the dashboard. It means that something is wrong.

WADE POWERS

The Covenant Divorce Recovery Leader's Handbook


No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.

STEFAN ZWEIG

Beware of Pity

Tags: Stefan Zweig


Innocence is the weakest defense. Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, "I didn't do it." Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.

LEONARD F. PELTIER

Prison Writings

Tags: Leonard F. Peltier


You wear guilt
Like shackles on your feet
Like a halo in reverse

DEPECHE MODE

"Halo"

Tags: Depeche Mode


To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked.

VITTORIO ALFIERI

Rosmunda

Tags: Vittorio Alfieri


Normal guilt is like a sensor: When functioning well, it alerts us to what's ethically correct and guides us toward morally acceptable behavior. Psychopathology arises, not from the human experience of normal guilt, but from neurotic guilt.

JOHN SOMMERS-FLANAGAN

Counseling and Psychotherapy


There is no man that is knowingly wicked, but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him, but he receives a sting into his soul.

JOHN TILLOTSON

Sermons Preach'd Upon Several Occasions

Tags: John Tillotson