Quotessence
Home / Topics / Remorse Quotes

Remorse Quotes

Browse 490 quotes about Remorse.

Related topics

Remorse Quotes

“An inexhaustible capacity to engage in sin is what makes human beings capable of living a virtuous life. To err is human; to seek penance is humankind’s unique act of salvation. Whenever a person fails, it is often their overwhelming sense of anguish that drives them forward to make a second attempt that is far more bighearted than they originally envisioned. The need for redemption drives us to try again despite our backside enduring the terrible weight of our greatest catastrophes. There is no person as magnanimous as a person whom finally encountered tremendous success after previously enduring a tear-filled trail of hardships and repeated setbacks. In an effort to redeem our lost dignity, in an effort to regain self-respect, we find our true selves. By working independently to better ourselves and struggling to fulfill our cherished values, we save ourselves while coincidentally uplifting all of humanity.”

“In projecting onto others their own moral sense, therapists sometimes make terrible errors. Child physical abusers are automatically labeled “impulsive," despite extensive evidence that they are not necessarily impulsive but more often make thinking errors that justify the assaults. Sexual and physical offenders who profess to be remorseful after they are caught are automatically assumed to be sincere. After all, the therapist would feel terrible if he or she did such a thing. It makes perfect sense that the offender would regret abusing a child. People routinely listen to their own moral sense and assume that others share it. Thus, those who are malevolent attack others as being malevolent, as engaging in dirty tricks, as being “in it for the money,“ and those who are well meaning assume others are too, and keep arguing logically, keep producing more studies, keep expecting an academic debate, all the time assuming that the issue at hand is the truth of the matter. Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 p122”

“Every society produces its outcast. I am wickedly corrupt, the type of renegade spirit that other men fear. I am the natural rival of briefcases carrying corporate men whom brandish their patented leather bourgeois success. Carrying a money satchel to demonstrate economic success means little to me, especially if the only purpose of such public display of a purse is to pay homage to a chrome plated heart. I grew my hair out to exhibit independence from corporate America, but ultimately I answer only to a herculean self. I hear insalubrious cries of innocence, pleading lack of personal wrongdoing, but in my heart, I condemned myself for living a slipshod life filled with falsehoods. I conducted a show trial and found myself guilty of living selfishly. I deserve punishment for a wicked lifestyle, but self-punishment only operates to negate personal drive. I need to determine a reason to live and a find a means to move beyond a corrupt past.”

“Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how he keeps betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction. We have to stand up to that, and say, at least to ourselves, that what he’s done before is still with us, still right here in this room until there’s true remorse. Nothing will be right until there’s that.” “He looks so, sort of, weakened.” “Weakened is not enough. Destroyed isn’t enough. He’s got to repent and feel humiliation and regret. I won’t be satisfied until he knows what he is.” "Do we know what we are?" "We know we aren’t him. We know that to that degree we don’t yet deserve the lowest circle of hell.”

“If there is any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bite.”

“The theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak. You dedicate yourself passionately to something, to a project, to people, to a family, you think of nothing else for weeks and months, then suddenly it's over, it's perpetual destruction, perpetual divorce, perpetual adieu. It's like éternel retour, it's a koan. It's like falling in love and being smashed over and over again.’ 'You do, then, fall in love.’ 'Only with fictions, I love players, but actors are so ephemeral. And then there’s waiting for the perfect part, and being offered it the day after you've committed yourself to something utterly rotten. The remorse, and the envy and the jealousy. An old actor told me if I wanted to stay in the trade I had better kill off envy and jealousy at the start.”

“Any meaning of life derives from amiably accepting our anonymous role in the singular order of the universe. Such gracious reception of life’s turbulences stems from willingly capitulating to whatever fomented experiences life brings us without harboring a disconsolate degree of remorse or regret.”

“I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation– of remorse, or apology or restitution or restoration or relationship. I’m at peace, accepting that they won’t and can’t help me out of the mess they created. But, I’m the best qualified for that job anyway and I’m happy with the job I’m doing.”

“Where Storms Nest by Stewart Stafford Time's arrow has left its quiver, And mortal men denied a sliver, Of sweet-faced solace or settled debt, Surrendering all to sweeping death. Beware the vixen with the perished pup, Of merciless slight and sacrilegious sup, Of mother's milk and witches' brew, Curdling infamy and death's-head stew. The trap is sprung, the rider unseated, A mourning procession for the defeated, A great wrong sits on the anointed throne, She is Queen Bee and you, but a drone. From a spider's web veil, she does regard, Hateful glances from black heart's shard, Envenomed nature of poisonous Man, The scorpion's strike of a foul plan. After seeking power and blood and lust, Remorse a late guest to a dagger's thrust, The vulture shrieks to the globe's outer rim, That Man's ambition is a Hell to him. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

“I haughtily dismissed the principles sponsored by philosophers, religious leaders, and the ideas of poets in exchange for seeking financial stability and shallow happiness. I imported into my conceited consciousness the values of a freewheeling American society, a culture that fawns on rich and famous celebrities, applauds fantastic risk-taking, and promotes a permissive lifestyle. I lack serious ambition – romantic or practical – to achieve any intellectual or spiritual worthwhile accomplishments. Decrepit and friendless, I am so lost that I do not even know what bellwether I seek. I went astray by callously disrespecting the life sustaining lessons handed down by our ancestors. Only by stripping myself of the rank costume cloaking personal shame, a remorseful suit of motley skin that I stitched together by living a selfishly tailored life, can embark on a journey to discover a better way to live.”

“Why did I do that?” Remorse touches us a little deeper causing us to feel disgust and pain (involving both the intellect and the heart), but not causing us to change our ways. True repentance brings in the third aspect of our minds – our will. To truly repent one must have a change of will. “Godly sorrow” is the catalyst that brings us to true repentance. [Warren Wiersbe, Be Reverent, p. 149.] By Carey Dillinger From Expository Files 11.6; June 2004”

“Wiersbe suggests that a distinction can be made between regret, remorse and repentance. Regret is that activity of the mind (intellect) that causes us to say, “Why did I do that?” Remorse touches us a little deeper causing us to feel disgust and pain (involving both the intellect and the heart), but not causing us to change our ways. True repentance brings in the third aspect of our minds – our will. To truly repent one must have a change of will. “Godly sorrow” is the catalyst that brings us to true repentance. [Warren Wiersbe, Be Reverent, p. 149.] By Carey Dillinger From Expository Files 11.6; June 2004”

“Reflection offers a retrospective exploration, a way to figure out how everything fits and connects now on your journey- and being done so without regret or remorse. Reflection is the birthplace of discernment, an insightful and awakening place that grants you to keep what you need and smartly sift away the rest.”

“He was a stranger here. The people who might remember him would certainly not welcome him. His old gang had cast him out, along with all of the former friends and parents. The suburban landscape of hypocrisy, so hated in his youth, beheld again and with it, old feelings that motivated him through life more than he would ever admit. Every turning point in life, already decided by all the events here”

“He had no cause for self-reproach on the score of neglect, or want of thought, for he had been devoted to her service; and yet a hundret little occasions rose up before him on which he fancied he might have been more zealous, and more earnest, and wished he had been. We need be careful how we deal with those about us; when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done; of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired. There is no remorse so deep, as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.”

“Here the first of the things that happened, happened. The first of the things important enough to notice and to remember afterward, among a great many trifling but kindred ones that were not. Some so slight they were not more than gloating, zestful glints of eye or curt hurtful gestures. (Once he accidentally poured a spurt of scalding tea on the back of a waitress' wrist, by not waiting long enough for the waitress to withdraw her hand in setting the cup down, and by turning his head momentarily the other way. The waitress yelped, and he apologized, but he showed his teeth as he did so, and you don't show your teeth in remorse).”

“With the first jolt he was in daylight; they had left the gateways of King’s Cross, and were under blue sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled along behind the eastern smokes — a wheel, whose fellow was the descending moon — and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees — that is a fact — grow out of one of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave’s occupant — that is the legend — is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and farther afield lay the house of a hermit — Mrs. Wilcox had known him — who barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor. While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of “now. ” She did not free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful.”