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Shame Quotes

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Shame Quotes

“A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts with his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and loose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well - in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWellsMayMeanPersonsSpiritLyingFallSpeakStrongGrowsCausesActingSituationInfluenceBenefitsSightShameConvictionReactionsObjectivesLiberationConfused
Author:Mikhail Bakunin
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“I believe one of our souls' major purposes is to know, love, and express our authentic selves. To live the life and be the person we were created to be. However, our true selves only emerge when it's safe to do so. Self-condemnation, shame, and guilt send your true nature into hiding. It's only in the safety of gentle curiosity, encouragement, and self-love that your soul can bloom as it was created to do.”

KnowsBelievePersonsSoulSelfPurposeI BelieveSelf LoveSafeMajorsEncouragementShameSafetyGuiltCuriosityAuthenticityYour SoulLive LifeGentleHidingTrue SelfTrue NatureCondemnationAuthentic SelfShame And Guilt
Author:Sue Thoele
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“The drivenness in any addiction is about the ruptured self, the belief that one is flawed as a person. The content of the addiction, whether it is alcoholism or work, is an attempt at an intimate relationship. The workaholic with her work or the alcoholic with his booze are having a love affair. Each alters mood to avoid the feeling of loneliness and hurt in the underbelly of shame.”

PersonsSelfFeelingsBeliefHurtLonelinessShameAddictionAffairMoodIntimateFlawedAlcoholismAlcoholicsLove AffairBoozeWorkaholicIntimate Relationships
Author:John Bradshaw
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“The offence is what is improperly called the death of an infant, who has ceased to be, before knowing what existence is, a result of a nature not to give the slightest inquietude to the most timid imagination; and which can cause no regrets but to the very person who, through a sentiment of shame and pity, has refused to prolong a life begun under the auspices of misery.”

GivingPersonsCausesImaginationResultsExistenceKnowingRegretShameMiseryPitySentimentsInfantNo RegretsOffence
Book:Theory of Legislation
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“Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.”

PeopleKnowsWayWantFeelsKindPersonsFormLawSocialCausesMissingOughtBehaviorShameResponseSeekingAcceptedReactionsAll KindsMannersNastySymptomsJustifiedDiscomfortEtiquetteDisregardedTreating OthersMiss Manners
Book:Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility
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“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 guilt 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.”

PeopleWantFeelsMayPersonsDifferentFeelingsWantedLyingMotherDifferencesClearTheoryShameGuiltGuiltyAshamedWrongLied
Author:Lewis B. Smedes
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“For better or worse we live in a very exposing [time] where, if you choose to, everyone can see everyone's business. You see what they're having for breakfast, where they are, what they're doing. Whereas I think that classic idea of mystery is very seductive. Not knowing every single thing about a person, what they're thinking, that's very powerful. And it would be a shame if we lost that totally.”

IfsThinkingPersonsIdeasWould BeLostPowerfulKnowingMysteryShameClassicBreakfastYou ChooseNot KnowingVery PowerfulSeductiveExposing
Author:Theo James
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“We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he's doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won't, can't, or doesn't dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e.g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can't learn, or be intelligent about, what he's not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere.”

IfsKnowsWantFeelsPersonsActionPainBlessingIntelligentShameDareStupidityPunishmentBoredomElsewhereNot InterestedIrrelevantDoing NothingEmbarrassmentPolitenessRepressed
Author:Paul Goodman
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“People always say, "You played such a strong character." I remember someone said that to me when I played a role in Shame, and she was a suicidal mess. I said, "She's not strong at all; she's incredibly weak." But "strong" to people means "real." It means you believe that's a person who exists, as opposed to some two-dimensional depiction of women.”

PeopleBelieveMeanPersonsSaidTwoRealCharacterRememberStrongRolesWeakShameMessSuicidalDepictionNot StrongStrong Character
Author:Carey Mulligan
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“Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?”

PeoplePersonsMadeSaidGovernmentChristianYoungPresidentTakenPersonalityConscienceShameSensesPityMade ItCorporationsTreasuryPsychopathic
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“Assume that a surgeon has discovered how to do brain surgery, that he can do only one a month, that 1,000 persons a year need such an operation if they are to survive. How is the surgeon's scarce resource to be allocated? Charge whatever price is necessary to adjust supply and demand, say $50,000! 'For shame,' some will cry. 'Your market system will save only wealthy people.' For the moment, yes. But soon there will be hundreds of surgeons who will acquire the same skill; and, as in the case of the once scarce and expensive 'miracle drugs,' the price then will be within reach of all.”

PeopleIfsNeedsYearsPersonsMomentsCan DoBrainCasesCryMonthsDrugSkillsDemandResourcesMiracleShameAssumingOperationsAcquireExpensiveWealthySurgerySurgeonsScarceWithin ReachSupply And DemandBrain SurgeryScarce Resources
Author:Leonard Read
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“If you encounter a human shadow burned permanently into the concrete in Hiroshima, you realize that this is the trace of a very ordinary person now elevated into the emblematic. Time, shame, complicity, or discomfort are the only things that make us pretend History is impersonal or far removed from the power and consequences of our every lived moment.”

IfsHumansPersonsMomentsRealizingOrdinaryShadowConsequenceShameEncountersConcreteBurnedDiscomfortHiroshimaComplicityOrdinary Person
Author:Chris Abani
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“Everybody in the world has to compromise. I don't know one person that gets everything they want, so the politicians are going to have to figure that out and stop pointing out, "He shook hands with a Democrat in 1989. He ate with a Republican last week." It's petty high school, even junior high stuff going on. It's junior high politics going on, so it's a shame.”

KnowsWorldWantPersonsHandsSchoolLastsStuffWeekFiguresPoliticianRepublicanHigh SchoolShameDemocratCompromisePettyPointingJuniorsJunior High
Author:Ice Cube
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“I get called "ISIS" now. Why don't we have a name-and-shame weapons dealership website? Instead, we're like, "Oh my God, are you really talking about the refugees again, making yourself into a caricature?" And it's like, "Until you stop the person in your country who's making billions of dollars from selling weapons, yeah, I have to talk about refugees." Whatever I say will get twisted or messed with.”

PersonsCountryNamesTalkingWeaponsShameYeahDollarsBillionsSellingRefugeeTwistedIsisWebsiteCaricatures
Author:M.I.A.
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“She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”

PeopleIfsShouldMindWellsPersonsWishKnowingIgnoranceShameIgnorantVanityAshamedMisfortunesSensibleInabilityMisplaced
Author:Jane Austen
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“We all have secret lives. The life of excretion; the world of inappropriate sexual fantasies; our real hopes, our terror of death; our experience of shame; the world of pain; and our dreams. No one else knows these lives. Consciousness is solitary. Each person lives in that bubble universe that rests under the skull, alone.”

KnowsWorldPersonsRealDreamPainUniverseSecretConsciousnessFantasyShameTerrorLive LifeBubblesSolitaryOur DreamsSkullsInappropriateSecret Life
Book:Galileo's Dream
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“No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.”

WorldNeedsTryingLittlesPersonsHardFeltMiddleLonelinessStrangeShameFinalsTalesMake SenseLogicalDriftingTrying So Hard
Book:Let The Great World Spin
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“There is a certain kind of pain that can change you. Even the strongest sword, when placed in a raging fire, will soften and bend and change its form... Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you're a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like. And when that time comes, I hope you have the strength...to take advantage of the fire and reshape your own sword.”

KnowsFeelsKindPersonsSoulPainFormCertainMistakeFireOne DayAdvantageShameGuiltRageHorribleStrongestTrust MePersonal ExperiencesSplitting
Author:Adam Gidwitz
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“Oh! why was I born with a different face? why was I not born like the rest of my race? when I look,each one starts! when I speak, I offend; then Im silent & passive & lose every friend. Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise, my person degrade & my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; all my talents I bury, and dead is my fame. Im either too low or too highly prized; when elate I m envy'd, when meek Im despis'd”

LooksPersonsDifferentFacesSpeakBornLosesRaceTalentFameLowsShameSilentTerrorEnvyPensTemperDespiseVersesPassivePencilsDegradeMeekDishonourDifferent Faces
Book:The Selected Poems of William Blake
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“Are you one of those people who says on a first date, 'I'm really not in a hurry to meet somebody, I figure if it happens, it happens'? Because those are the most desperate people of all. I'm just saying this so that if you are this person, you aren't hiding it from anybody. There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.”

PeopleIfsFirstsPersonsHappensShareFiguresShameHungryDesperateHidingJust SayingFirst Date
Author:Augusten Burroughs
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“There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.”

PersonsShareShameHungry
Book:This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
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“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.”

KnowsNeedsChildrenPersonsLongDoneVoiceDifferencesFreedomForgetQualityOur LivesDependsIntegrityShameVictimFilledPrisonHungryBeing TrueMaking A DifferenceLife And DeathAnguishNot AloneDissidents
Author:Elie Wiesel
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“It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you're being knocked down, 'Why am I being knocked down?' If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.”

PeopleIfsWayPersonsImportantMotivationalMotivationAsksInspiringShameImportant ThingsKnocked DownThere Is Hope
Book:Bruce Lee Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
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“The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.”

KnowsWayShouldPersonsLightDealsForeverArmsCriticismShameRidiculousFollyHidingSuperstitionsPoliteSuperstitiousCripplesInfamous
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“Jung first gave us the term ‘shadow’ to refer to those parts of our personality that have been rejected out of fear, ignorance, shame, or lack of love. His basic notion of the shadow was simple: ‘the shadow is the person you would rather not be.’ He believed that integrating the shadow would have a profound impact, enabling us to rediscover a deeper source of our own spiritual life. ‘To do this,’ Jung said, ‘we are obliged to struggle with evil, confront the shadow, to integrate the devil. There is no other choice.’”

FirstsPersonsHas BeensSaidSpiritualChoicesEvilTermSimpleStruggleIgnoranceSourcePersonalityDevilShadowShameImpactProfoundNotionDeeperSpiritual LifeRejectedObligedIntegratingEnablingJungLack Of Love
Author:Debbie Ford
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“The simple person lives the way he breathes, with no more effort or glory, with no more affectation and without shame Simplicity is freedom, buoyancy, transparency. As simple as the air, as free as the air The simple person does not take himself too seriously or too tragicallyHe has nothing to prove, since he has no appearances to keep up, and nothing to seek, since everything is before him. What is more simple than simplicity? What is lighter? It is the virtue of wise men and the wisdom of saints.”

MenWayPersonsDoeSimpleEffortVirtueWiseAirProveGloryShameSimplicitySaintAppearanceBreatheTransparencyLightersBuoyancySimple Person
Author:Andre Comte-Sponville
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“Everyone's sex life is funny except your own. Every person's is, and yours never is. The lengths people go to — and the extremes and the conditions and the mental exercises and guilt and shame and happiness that everybody goes through — and what they'll do for sex is never-ending and mind-boggling and very interesting to me. And I don't think a lot of times people choose any of it.”

PeopleThinkingMindPersonsLife IsSexInterestingConditionsExerciseShameGuiltExtremesLengthVery InterestingNever EndingMind Boggling
Author:John Waters
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“My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don’t even need to shrug. I simply don’t care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don’t matter.”

MenNeedsLooksMeanLittlesPersonsMatterFeelingsCareYoungFallWalksResultsWatchesShameSoldierJewDon't CareStomachYearningBulletsNaziHandsomeMisandryMan HaterDachau
Book:The Women's Room
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