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Shame Quotes

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Shame Quotes

“Though this new forest grew mightily, elsewhere the mighty jungles fell. Elsewhere the coastal rain forests that furred the body of the world were torn and riven. Elsewhere the last of the old growth the last of the world's own garment were ripped away. It was in this time, now, that the mother of us all was stripped naked and left to die in shame of her children, she who had been robed in glory like this, adorned like this. I bent my head upon the roots and wept, sorrowing for the trees.”

World Children Body Lasts Mother Dies Left Growth Tree Grew Glory Rain Roots Shame Forests Naked Elsewhere Bent Torn Jungle Garments Ripped Coastal

Author:Sheri S. Tepper

“Many [hooligans] discover to their shame that they have scruples; they have roots and, greatest disadvantage of all, they have hope. The fathers superior of the order do not try to influence their children in Satan; they merely shake their heads in sorrow. They know that the apostate must work out his own damnation.”

Knows Trying Children Order Father Influence Sorrow Roots Shame Work Out Superiors Satan Shakes Disadvantages Having Hope Damnation Scruples

Author:Quentin Crisp

“Behold great Whitman, whose licentious line Delights the rake, and warms the souls of swine; Whose fever'd fancy shuns the measur'd pace, And copies Ovid's filth without his grace. In his rough brain a genius might have grown, Had he not sought to play the brute alone; But void of shame, he let his wit run wild, And liv'd and wrote as Adam's bestial child.”

Children Soul Play Might Running Lines Brain Grace Genius Shame Delight Wit Fancy Rough Copies Pace Adam Void Brutes Fever Filth Swine Rakes

Book:The Conservative

Source: The Conservative

“Being natural and matter-of-fact about nudity prevents your children from developing an attitude of shame or disgust about the human body. If parents are very secretive about their bodies and go to great lengths to prevent their children from ever seeing a buttock or breast, children will wonder what is so unusual, and even alarming, about human nudity.”

“The deeper purpose of a more positive attitude toward men is a better life for the children who are parented by the men who are their dads and stepdads; less shame for our sons who will become men; and, for our daughters, a deeper understanding of men's desire to please that leaves them feeling their willingness to please is not unrequited but returned - allowing our daughters to feel less lonely and more loved. If we earn more and love less, we pay for a home in which we do not live.”

“We have our share of accidents at nap time. However, the one thing we never do is shame the child, or use blaming words.”

Children Use One Thing Share Shame Blame Accidents Naps Nap Time

Author:Jean Parker

“Do the Pentecostals look back with shame as they remember when they dwelt across the theological tracks, but with the glory of the Lord in their midst? When they had a normal church life, which meant nights of prayers, followed by signs and wonders, and diverse miracles, and genuine gifts of the Holy Ghost? When they were not clock watchers, and their meetings lasted for hours, saturated with holy power? Have we no tears for these memories, or shame that our children know nothing of such power?”

“Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak--above all, any little child--to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste--never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer--crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.”

Source: Daily Thoughts (EasyRead Super Large 18pt Edition)

“A child motivated by competitive ideals will grow into a man without conscience, shame, or true dignity.”

Men Children Grows Conscience Ideals Dignity Shame Competition Motivated

Book:The Intimate Journal of George Sand

Source: The Intimate Journal of George Sand

“Our life is so short that every time I see my children, I enjoy them as much as I can. Whenever I can, I enjoy my beloved, my family, my friends, my apprentices. But mainly I enjoy myself, because I am with myself all the time. Why should I spend my precious time with myself judging myself, rejecting myself, creating guilt and shame? Why should I push myself to be angry or jealous? If I don't feel good emotionally, I find out what is causing it and I fix it. Then I can recover my happiness and keep going with my story.”

“And when April like an over-lustful lover leaped upon the lush flanks of the Downs there would be yet another child in the wretched hut down on Nettle Flitch Field, where Meriam housed the fruits of her shame.”

Children Would Be Fields Lovers Shame Fruit Wretched April Huts Lush Lustful Nettles

Book:Cold comfort farm

Source: Cold comfort farm

“Persecute them. ... Let them be put to shame and perish. ... Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. ... Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.”

Children Wife Mercy Shame Scary Favour Widows Vagabonds Fatherless

Author:Wiley Drake

“If I wrote at all, I must throw myself headlong into the great political maelstrom, and would of course be swallowed up like a fishing-boat in the great Norway horror which decorated our school geographies; for no woman had ever done such a thing, and I could never again hold up my head under the burden of shame and disgrace which would be heaped upon me. But what matter? I had no children to dishonor; all save one who had ever loved me were dead, and she no longer needed me, and if the Lord wanted some one to throw into that gulf, no one could be better spared than I.”

“The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name.”

Ifs Children Long Names Lost Left Wife Effects Shame Ill Stranger Thirty Posterity Unborn Matrimony Best Times

Author:Walter Raleigh

“The psychological pain--and the ethical shame--of American poverty are made greater by the fact that this country possesses the wealth and the energy to raise all children to a minimally decent standard of living.”

Children Made Country Facts Pain Energy Wealth Poverty Greater Standards Shame Raises Psychological Decent Ethical Standards Of Living Psychological Pain American Poverty

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“An older child, one who possesses a conscience, will be troubled with self-reproaches and feelings of shame for his naughtiness, even if he is not discovered. But our two-year-olds and our three-year- olds experience guilt feelings only when they feel or anticipate disapproval from the outside. In doing this, they have taken the first steps toward the goal of conscience, but there is a long way ahead before the policeman outside becomes the policeman inside.”

“How dare you refer to my beautiful children as 'synthetic'. And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF - a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children, your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again.”

People Thinking Children Littles Dream Beautiful Steps Fashion Like You Gay Miracle Shame Fingers Dare Having Children Legion Judgemental Synthetic Shame On You Ivf

Author:Elton John

“Being natural and matter-of-fact about nudity prevents your children from developing an attitude of shame and guilt about the human body.”

Humans Children Matter Facts Body Natural Attitude Shame Our Children Guilt Developing Your Children Human Body Matter Of Fact Nudity Being Natural Nudists Shame And Guilt

Author:Lee Salk

“As you become an adult, shame gets introduced and reintroduced constantly to you. So where something that, to a child, just is what it is - you know, your father's violent but he loves you and that's just the way it is - later on you realize that this is like different, shameful, blah blah blah.”

Knows Way Children Different Father Realizing Love You Adults Shame Violent Shameful Blah

Author:Justin Torres

“Without a sense of the shame or guilt of his or her action, the child will only be hardened in rebellion by physical punishment. Shame (and praise) help the child to internalize the parent's judgment. It impresses upon the child that the parent is not only more powerful but also right. Like the Puritans, Locke (in 1690), wanted the child to adopt the parent's moral position, rather than simply bow to superior strength or social pressure.”

Children Helping Action Wanted Social Parent Powerful Moral Position Judgment Pressure Praise Shame Guilt Punishment Superiors Rebellion Bows Impress Puritan Hardened Social Pressure

Author:C. Sommerville

“The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.”

Want Feels Kind Children Desire Father Causes Virtue Pride Glory Shame Our Children Fundamentals Average Credit Worldly Defects Undesirable

Author:Bertrand Russell

“The practical question, then, is what to do with the children. Tolerate them at home we will not. Let them run loose in the streets we dare not until our streets become safe places for children, which, to our utter shame, they are not at present, though they can hardly be worse than some homes and some schools.”

Children Home Running School Streets Safe Shame Dare Practicals Tolerate Safe Places

Book:The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

“Child abuse is one of those issues that's very difficult to talk about because it's surrounded by guilt and shame and so on, but us avoiding that issue doesn't help those kids in need out there who need support.”

Needs Children Helping Kids Difficult Support Issues Abuse Shame Guilt Child Abuse Avoiding

Author:Chris Hemsworth

“When I was a child, for a public/civil servant to be caught in corrupt practices, that individual will be a pariah. He will be a complete reject of the society; he/she could not raise his or her voice to speak in the public. So what happened between that time and now? That time when a public officer, prison or customs officer caught in corruption hides his face in shame amongst his peers, he just couldn't come out publicly. Today, when they come back, they get chieftaincy titles, they are received in grand style, cows are killed, they ride on white horses.”

“I don't know if that's the best story for BoJack, long-term. I do love the world, and I love playing around in it and it feels like an elastic enough world that, any story I want to tell, I can tell about these characters in this world. I can talk about parents and children, husbands and wives, the troops, or Hollywood. It does feel like an endless playground at this point, it would be a shame if we cut it off early for fear of repeating the same things over and over again. But I am looking to move the story and character somewhat.”

World Children Enough Character Moving Parent Cutting Wife Husband Shame Husband And Wife

Author:Raphael Bob-Waksberg

“I've always felt for little children because I love the way they fashion sentences - their vocabulary is limited. They have to navigate around to get to the meaning. It's a shame we bypass that when we gain more words. In a way, it's less honest and less direct. It's something that I appreciate about kids, and I will steal from them at will.”

Children Kids Honest Fashion Appreciate Direct Shame Stealing

Author:Thao Nguyen

“I believe that mothers should tell the truth, even - no, especially - when the truth is difficult. It's always easier, and in the short term can even feel right, to pretend everything is okay, and to encourage your children to do the same. But concealment leads to shame, and of all hurts shame is the most painful.”

Source: Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace

“One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.”

Feels Children Mother Fall Inspiring Failing Ideals Shame Our Children Mothers Day Bad Mother

Book:Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace

Source: Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace

“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs―the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limbs, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate―the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.”

Source: The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated

“Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street.”

Should Children Age Certain Courses Speak Parent Streets Shame Parenting Territory Embarrassing Embarrassment Cringe Mortification

Book:Anansi Boys

Source: Anansi Boys

“And nothing inspires as much shame as being a parent. Children confront us with our paradoxes and hypocrisies, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why — Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? — and often there isn’t a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn’t true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood — which is a good shame — is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers.”

Knows Want Needs Children Whole Stories Faces Parent Answers Inspire Shame Our Children Hypocrisy Paradox Your Face Parenthood Exposed Being A Parent Parent Child

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“Such silly things, children -- and so embarrassing -- because they keep changing themselves out of shame, out of a need to be loved or something. While animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.”

People Needs Children Born Animal Accepting Greater Shame Silly Embarrassing Silly Things

Author:Gregory Maguire

“I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. But they are murdered children all the same.”

Ifs Men Children War Dies Honor Glory Shame Holiday Patriotic Everlasting Manly Cats Cradle Bokonon Jubilation

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“It was a damned good thing men couldn’t have children. Gregory took no shame in admitting that the human race would have died out generations earlier.”

Men Humans Children Race Generations Died Shame Good Things Human Race Admitting

Book:On the way to the wedding

Source: On the way to the wedding

“Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.”

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... One person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.”

“A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty, the trouble of civility, the spoil of wealth, the distraction of reason. He is the brewer's agent, the tavern and alehouse benefactor, the beggar's companion, the constable's trouble, his wife's woe, his children's sorrow, his neighbours scoff, his own shame.”

Children Reason Wealth Wife Trouble Sorrow Shame Agents Companion Distraction Modesty Woe Spoil Neighbour Civility Beggar Drunkenness Drunkards Annoyance Benefactors Taverns Brewers

Author:Thomas Adams

“I was doing a children's book on self-esteem, and I really felt like I wanted to shed the shame I'd been feeling - and maybe make it easier for women my age who had probably felt bad about themselves.”

Children Book Self Feelings Age Wanted Felt Self Esteem Easier Shame Esteem Shed Children's Books

Author:Jamie Lee Curtis

“As a people, we value family, education and success. Hunger is an enemy to all three. Scientific studies have demonstrated that even brief periods of hunger can permanently inhibit a child's mental, emotional and physical growth. Kids who are hungry do poorly in school and are unlikely to grow into productive adults. For families, experiencing hunger means living in a world of isolation and shame. Caring citizens must put an end to this disgrace.”

“To the end, I will remain a child of Europe, of worry and of shame. I have no message of hope to deliver. For the West, I do not feel hatred. At most I feel a great contempt. I know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live, and what's more, we continue to export it.”

Knows Feels Children Ends Worry Impossible Messages Europe Hatred Shame West Selfishness Contempt Masochism Message Of Hope

Book:Platform: A Novel

Source: Platform: A Novel

“We mean business, George Bush, ... and we're going to go to Congress and we're going to ask them, 'How many more of other people's children are you willing to sacrifice for the lies' And we're going to say, Shame on you. Shame on you for giving him the authority to invade Iraq.”

People Giving Mean Children Lying Asks Sacrifice Willing Authority Shame Congress Iraq Deceit Shame On You

Book:Not One More Mother's Child

Source: Not One More Mother's Child

“For nearly 2,000 years of Christian civilization, taking the life of an unborn child was regarded as a vile and heinous moral offense which degraded humanity. . . . Abortions to avoid illegitimate births, or otherwise for convenience, were performed with a secrecy that was as much the mark of the shame attaching to the deed as a consequence of its illegality.”

Life Years Children Christian Humanity Moral Birth Civilization Consequence Mark Shame Deeds Abortion Offense Secrecy Convenience Unborn Unborn Child

Author:Ronald Butt

“Children learn what they live. If a child lives with criticism... he learns to condemn. If he lives with hostility... he learns to fight. If he lives with ridicule... he learns to be shy. If he lives with shame... he learns to be guilty. If he lives with tolerance... he learns confidence. If he lives with praise... he learns to appreciate. If he lives with fairness... he learns about justice”

Ifs Children Fighting Justice Appreciate Criticism Praise Shame Tolerance Guilty Shy Fairness Ridicule Hostility Learn To Appreciate

Author:Dorothy Nolte

“Shame is a fitter and generally a more effectual punishment for a child than beating.”

Children Shame Punishment

Author:Samuel Richardson

“If you were meant to cure cancer or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children, you hurt me, you hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite God Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter further along its path back to God.”

“If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn. If he lives with hostility, he learn s to fight. If a child lives with shame, he learn to fell ashamed.”

Ifs Children Fighting Self Esteem Criticism Shame Esteem Ashamed Hostility

Author:Dorothy Nolte

“The suffering inflicted, and more often than not on the most vulnerable sectors of society, demeans all of us as humanity. That it is invariably women, children, the aged and disabled who suffer in these conflicts stands to the added shame of humankind.”

Children Suffering Humanity Conflict Shame Vulnerable Humankind Disabled

Author:Nelson Mandela

“But somewhere within each of us, buried at varying depths depending on the age and degree of neglect or abuse, shame or coercion we endured, there is a resistant, daydreaming, rebellious, creative, unique child -- a true self who is waiting.”

Children Self Age Waiting Creative Degrees Unique Abuse Shame Depth Neglect Buried True Self Rebellious Coercion Daydreaming

Book:Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem

Source: Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem

“Shame makes people abandon their children and drink themselves to death. It also keeps us from true happiness. An apology is a glorious release.”

People Children Drink Shame Release Glorious Abandon Apology True Happiness

Book:Yes Please

Source: Yes Please

“My husband's personality was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow. On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the many months when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?' I blushed with shame. 'Don't deceive me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would seem ugly to me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need toys.”

Source: Venus in Furs