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Shame Quotes

Browse 2566 quotes about Shame.

Shame Quotes

“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

“Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits. Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones the direct our economy and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that?”

“I have big friends who won't go swimming because they're too embarrassed about it. I feel that's such a shame, because actually people should be encouraging fat people who are exercising to do it, not pointing and laughing.”

People Feels Should Bigs Laughing Exercise Shame Fats Swimming Embarrassed Pointing Fat People

Author:Jo Brand

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.”

Source: War Talk

“Is it thy will, thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night? Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee So far from home into my deeds to pry, To find out shames and idle hours in me, The scope and tenor of thy jealousy? O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great: It is my love that keeps mine eye awake: Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake: For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near.”

Source: The Pictorial edition of the works of Shakspere, ed. by C. Knight. [8 vols., including a vol. entitled William Shakspere, by C. Knight].

“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

“A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man who plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric.”

Ifs Men Feels Should Real Reason Science Evolution Shame Ashamed No Reason Ancestor Grandfather Rhetoric Obscure Acquaintance Be A Man Apes Plunge Religious Prejudice

Author:Thomas Huxley

“All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.”

Want Should Said Views Responsibility Situation Accepting Doubt Shame Finals Teeth No Doubt Confronting Final Words

Author:Jean-Paul Sartre

“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.”

People Ifs Should Mind Wells Persons Wish Knowing Ignorance Shame Ignorant Vanity Ashamed Misfortunes Sensible Inability Misplaced

Author:Jane Austen

“He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!' 'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.' 'No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.”

Source: Wuthering Heights

“What should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt? To what purpose?”

Ifs Should Believe May Done Faces Purpose Fall Accepting Generations Objects Horror Shame Guilt Silent Jew Compare Discussion Incomparable Extermination Revulsion Shame And Guilt

Book:The Reader

Source: The Reader

“Why should we girls not have the same privileges as men? Why do we police ourselves so stringently- whittling each other down with cutting remarks or holding ourselves back from greatness with a harness woven of fear and shame and longing? If we do not deem ourselves worthy first, how shall we ever ask for more?”

Ifs Men Should Firsts Girl Asks Cutting Greatness Police Shame Longing Privilege Worthy Remarks Woven Harness Whittling

Book:The Gemma Doyle Trilogy

Source: The Gemma Doyle Trilogy

“shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us”

Should Circumstances Shame Reserved

Book:Truth and Beauty: A Friendship

Source: Truth and Beauty: A Friendship

“Praying actualizes and deepens our communion with God. Our prayer can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude from the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer.”

Needs Should Heart Joy Suffering Prayer Sin Praying Gratitude Shame Arise Communion Our Prayers Communion With God

Book:Jesus of Nazareth

Source: Jesus of Nazareth

“"But when you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. 'And I don't quite know how they've managed to make this law in their favor, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well?”

Ifs Thinking Knows Men Should Wells Said Law Speak Sex Sin Common Talking Know How Greater Shame Blame Faults Ill Deny Inequality Stereotype Norm Favour Boast License

Author:Moderata Fonte

“I was all braced for the wrath that was going to put grizzlies to shame, and this is what I get? I should infuriate you more often.”

Should Shame Wrath Eclipse Grizzlies

Book:Eclipse

Source: Eclipse

“Did you love Melanie?" asked Adam unexpectedly. There was no pause before I shook my head. "That's a shame," said Adam. "Why?" "Well, someone as special as your daughter should've been... made with love.”

Should Wells Made Said Special Daughter Shame Adam Pauses Your Daughter Made With Love

Author:Malorie Blackman

“I was not much afraid of punishment, I was only afraid of disgrace.But that I feared more than death, more than crime, more than anything in the world. I should have rejoiced if the earth had swallowed me up and stifled me in the abyss. But my invincible sense of shame prevailed over everything . It was my shame that made me impudent, and the more wickedly I behaved the bolder my fear of confession made me. I saw nothing but the horror of being found out, of being publicly proclaimed, to my face, as a thief, as a liar, and slanderer.”

Ifs World Should Made Earth Faces Found Saws Crime Horror Should Have Shame Punishment Liars Thieves Confession Abyss Disgrace Invincible

Book:The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Source: The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“No one should be ashamed to speak up. Shame makes it easy for neglect and abuse and bullying to stay huddled together in their dark corner. It’s time to throw the switch on this spotlight. If I can inspire other kids to speak their truth, then everything I’ve been through will have been worth it.”

Ifs Should Has Beens I Can Kids Together Speak Easy Dark Inspire Abuse Shame Corners Ashamed Neglect Bullying Worth It Spotlight Inspire Others

Book:Keep Holding On

Source: Keep Holding On

“But all I feel is impatience, fury for the opposition I anticipate and the lies I'm going to have to tell to make it happen, and frustration that I can't even take a walk without them sending someone to hover. Attack me," she said. "I beg your pardon, Lady Queen?" "You should attack me, and we'll see what he does. He's probably quite bored--it'll be a relief to him." "Mightn't he run me through with his sword?" "Oh." Bitterblue chuckled. "Yes, I suppose he might. That would be a shame." "I'm gratified that you think so," said Giddon dryly.”

Thinking Feels Should Doe Said I Can Might Happens Would Be Running Lying Walks Shame Bored Queens Relief Opposition Frustration Fury Pardon Impatience Anticipate Make It Happen

Book:Bitterblue

Source: Bitterblue

“Most of our difficulties, our hopes, and our worries are empty fantasies. Nothing has ever existed except this moment. That's all there is. That's all we are. Yet most human beings spend 50 to 90 percent or more of their time in their imagination, living in fantasy. We think about what has happened to us, what might have happened, how we feel about it, how we should be different, how others should be different, how it's all a shame, and on and on; it's all fantasy, all imagination. Memory is imagination. Every memory that we stick to devastates our life.”

Thinking Feels Should Humans Different Moments Might Imagination Memories Human Beings Worry Fantasy Our Lives Happened Percent Empty Difficulty Shame Sticks

Author:Joko Beck

“Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.”

“Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people's compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work?”

People Thinking Should Art Enough Hands Artist Accepting Stupid Shame Critics Profession Painter Compliment Art Critic

Author:Edgar Degas

“Quite often I have been faced with people who were praised and admired for their talents and their achievements... According to prevailing attitudes, these people-the pride and joy of their parents-should have had a strong and stable sense of self-assurance. But the case is exactly the opposite... Whenever they suddenly get the feeling they have failed to live up to some ideal image or have not measured up to some standard, then they are plagued by anxiety or deep feelings of guilt and shame. What are the reasons for such disturbances in these competent, accomplished people?”

“The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.”

Should Deserve Praise Shame Arise

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“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.”

Knows Way Should Persons Light Deals Forever Arms Criticism Shame Ridiculous Folly Hiding Superstitions Polite Superstitious Cripples Infamous

Author:H. L. Mencken

“I thought of myself as an atheist until I realized it was a belief, too. It's a shame everything has to have a label. I feel that if I was figuratively dropped on the Earth and there was a political line, I would be just left of center. The difference for me is that conservatives are more interested in property values and rights and free markets, and liberals are more interested in human rights. In the end, there are people who don't fit into the marketplace and are not equipped. I believe the government should step in where the free market fails.”

“Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary.”

“We live in a world of self-deprecation, and while it’s healthy to make fun of ourselves from time to time, it bothers me when I see women of all ages belittling their accomplishments because they don’t want to appear boastful or overconfident. You don’t see a lot of guys out there underplaying their strengths or making light of what they’re good at, so why should women? While I get that there’s a fine line between owning your accomplishments and reciting every line of your résumé, there is absolutely no shame in being proud of what you’ve managed to achieve! Own it!”

World Want Should Self Light Age Guy Fun Lines Achieve Fine Proud Healthy Shame Bother Accomplishment Be Proud Fine Lines Belittle Reciting Self Deprecation Overconfident

Author:Lea Michele

“I just don't know that shame and fear need to be our teachers; rather, compassion, understanding, and love should be our guides.”

Knows Needs Should Understanding Compassion Teacher And Love Shame Guides Understanding And Love

Author:Kyan Douglas

“When we speak to drunkards, worldlings, or any ignorant, unconverted men, we disgrace them as in that condition to the utmost, and lay it on as plainly as we can speak, and tell them of their sin, and shame, and misery: and we expect, not only that they should bear all patiently, but take all thankfully, and we have good reasons for all this; and most that I deal with do take it patiently... But if we speak to a godly minister against his errors or any sin... if it be not more an applause than a reprehension, they take it as an injury almost insufferable.”

Ifs Men Should Reason Speak Sin Deals Conditions Bears Shame Lays Misery Errors Ignorant Ministers Injury Godly Disgrace Applause Drunkards Insufferable

Author:Richard Baxter

“I think that everyone at any age should ask themselves, 'where do I want to be today, where do I want to be tomorrow, and where do I want to be in a hundred years?' We all have clear answers to those questions. We only have so much time. It's a real shame if we don't spend our lives trying to do that.”

Ifs Thinking Want Should Trying Years Real Age Today Asks Answers Clear Our Lives Tomorrow Hundred Shame

Author:Jack Antonoff

“I feel no shame at being found still owning a share when the bottom of the market comes…I would go much further than that. I should say that it is from time to time the duty of a serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holdings with equanimity and without reproaching himself. … An investor…should be aiming primarily at long-period results, and should be solely judged by these.”

Feels Should Long Stills Found Results Accepting Share Serious Duty Periods Shame Bottom Investors Judged Equanimity Depreciation

Author:John Maynard Keynes

“Those who cultivate moral confusion for profit should understand this: we will name their names and shame them as they deserve to be shamed.”

Should Names Moral Deserve Shame Profit Confusion

Author:Bob Dole

“When blame inevitably arises, the most senior people in the room should repeat this mantra: if a mistake happens, shame on us for making it so easy to make that mistake.”

People Ifs Should Happens Easy Rooms Mistake Shame Blame Arise Repeats Senior Mantras Mistakes Happen

Book:The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Source: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

“It is rather the nature of America - our freewheeling, outspoken, prosperous, liberty-loving citizens extend equality to women, homosexuals, minorities, and almost anyone who comes to our shores, and thereby create desire and with it shame for that desire. Indeed, it is worse still than that: Precisely because we worry publicly that we are insensitive, our enemies scoff privately that we in fact are too sensitive - what we think is liberality and magnanimity they see as license and decadence. If we don't have confidence in who we are, why should they?”

“One of our troubles is we are not willing to humble ourselves. We are not willing to give up our opinions as to how things should be done. We want a revival to come just in our way. You never saw two revivals come just alike. We must let them come in God's way. People are ashamed to admit they need a revival. If you are not willing to take the shame on yourself, you then let it remain on Jesus Christ. You must bear the reproach of your sinful state of indifference, or the cause of our Master must bear it.”

People Ifs Way Want Needs Giving Should Two States Done Jesus Causes Christ Opinion Saws Trouble Willing Masters Bears Giving Up Jesus Christ Shame Humble Indifference Ashamed Revival Reproach

Author:Mordecai Ham

“Starting a business isn't for everyone, and it's not what you should do if you aren't sure what else to do. It requires thick skin and the willingness to carry a great deal of stress, sometimes alone. It's more often a life of failure than a life of success, and the majority of successes came after a long road of disappointment, and often shame.”

Ifs Should Long Sometimes Deals Skins Stress Shame Majority Starting Disappointment Willingness Thick Thick Skin Starting A Business Long Road

Author:Kathryn Minshew

“Christian mothers, if only you knew the future of distress and peril, of shame ill-restrained, that you prepare for your sons and daughters in imprudently accustoming them to live hardly clothed and in making them lose the sense of modesty, you should be ashamed of yourselves and of the harm done the little ones whom heaven entrusted to your care, to be reared in Christian dignity and culture.”

Ifs Should Littles Done Care Christian Mother Culture Heaven Loses Son Daughter Dignity Shame Ill Harm Ashamed Modesty Distress Peril Your Son Son And Daughter If Only You Knew

Author:Pope Pius XII

“What a beautiful world God, in His loving kindness to His creatures, has given us! What a shame that men endowed with reason and knowledge of right should mar His gifts.”

Men World Should War Reason Beautiful Given Kindness Creatures Shame Civil War Mars Loving Kindness Beautiful World

Book:Recollections and Letters

Source: Recollections and Letters

“Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.”

Should Shame Filled

Author:Clement of Alexandria

“There should be no shame in admitting to a mistake; after all, we really are only admitting that we are now wiser than we once were.”

Should Mistake Shame Wiser Admitting

Author:Greg McKeown

“Scarlett: You should die of shame to leave me here alone and helpless. Rhett: You helpless? (laughs) Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you.”

Ifs Should Helping Dies Heaven Laughing Shame Capture Helpless Yankees Leaving Me

Author:Vivien Leigh

“Before you can kill a demon, you have to be able to say it's name. Names have power. While the word Alzheimer's terrorizes us, it has power over us. When we are prepared to discuss it aloud, we might have power over it. It's thought of as a mental illness and it is a physical illness, affecting the brain. There should be no shame in having it, yet people still don't talk about it”

People Should Stills Might Able Names Brain Shame Prepared Illness Mental Illness Demon Over It Alzheimer Alzheimer's

Author:Terry Pratchett

“If you, who are organised by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury your talent in the earth, even though you should want natural bread, sorrow and desperation pursue you through life, and after death shame and confusion of face to eternity.”

Source: Prefatory note There is no natural religion. All religions are one. The marriage of heaven and hell Visions of the daughters of Albion. A song of liberty. America. Europe. The book of Urizen. The book of Los. Ahania. The song of Los. The four Zoas. Milton. Jerusalem. On Homer's poetry; On Virgil. Laocoön. The ghost of Abel

“...to say...that Laetrile should not be continued to be used by those who are suffering from terminal cancer, I would have to hang my head in shame.”

Should Age Used Suffering Dark Shame Cancer Medical Dark Ages Terminal Terminal Cancer

Author:Luther L. Bohanon

“I've made a terrible confession to you, he concluded gloomily. Do appreciate it, gentlemen. And it's not enough, not enough to appreciate it, you must not just appreciate it, it should also be precious to you, and if not, if this, too, goes past your souls, then it means you really do not respect me, gentlemen. I tell you that, and I will die of shame at having confessed to such men as you.”

Ifs Men Should Mean Made Soul Enough Past Dies Terrible Appreciate Shame Your Soul Gentleman Confession Respect Me

Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky

“...there was a blond misty boy sitting beside me, and he looked at me, and I at him, and we were not strangers: our hands moved towards each other to embrace. I never heard his voice, for we did not speak; it is a shame, I should so like the memory of it. Loneliness, like fever, thrives on night, but there with him light broke, breaking in the trees like birdsong, and when sunrise came, he loosened his fingers from mine, and walked away, that misty boy, my friend.”

Source: Some postwar American writers

“Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.”

Should Shame Ashamed Oppressed

Author:Nelson Mandela

“Certainly it is no shame to a man that he should be as nice about his country as his sweetheart, yet it would not be wise to hold everyone an enemy who could not see her with our own enchanted eyes.”

Men Should War Country Eye Peace Enemy Wise Nice Shame Being Wise Enchanted Sweetheart

Author:James Russell Lowell