quotations about shame
The only shame is to have none.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
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
I drew it over my skin like a violins bow, No one would ever hear the song of my shame.
JODI PICOULT
Handle with Care
Where there is shame there is virtue.
JOHANN RIST
attributed, Day's Collacon
To be shame-bound means that whenever you feel any feeling, need or drive, you immediately feel ashamed. The dynamic core of your human life is grounded in your feelings, needs and drives. When these are bound by shame, you are shamed to the core.
JOHN BRADSHAW
Healing the Shame that Binds You
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
JONATHAN SWIFT
"Thoughts on Various Subjects", The Works of Jonathan Swift
One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.
LOUIS KRONENBERGER
Company Manners
It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
I count him lost, who is lost to shame.
PLAUTUS
Bacchides
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
Shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us.
ANN PATCHETT
Truth and Beauty
Whoever despiseth shame, despiseth sin.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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"
While shame is something a person imposes upon themselves, shaming is a thing that society imposes on people and on women in far greater numbers than men.
GABRIELLE ZEVIN
interview, Seattle Pi, August 26, 2017
The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.
JOHN BRADSHAW
Healing the Shame that Binds You
It is better to be buried than to live in shame.
PANTHEA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
Shame
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
SENECA
attributed, Day's Collacon
All is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It's the fear that we aren't good enough.
DEBRA CAMPBELL
"Peeling the Onion of Abuse and Shame", Huffington Post, September 14, 2017