quotations about shame
I want to drag knives over my skin, just to feel something other than shame, but I'm not even brave enough for that.
PAULA HAWKINS
The Girl on the Train
Shame is always easier to handle if you have someone to share it with.
CRAIG THOMPSON
Blankets
Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation!
JOHN BUNYAN
The Pilgrim's Progress
Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.
BRENE BROWN
I Thought It Was Just Me
Shame ... ever sticks close to the ribs of honor.
THOMAS MIDDLETON
The Mayor of Queenborough; Or Hengist, King of Kent
Sin and shame ever go together; he that would be freed from the last must be sure to shun the company of the first.
ANNE BRADSTREET
Meditations Divine and Moral
Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess what it must be to live the life of a human being.
OSAMU DAZAI
No Longer Human
There's shames a man can never reason away, though he looks back and piles up reasons over them forty dozen deep. And maybe those are the shames a man never should reason away.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Time was when most people didn't want to admit feelings shame, but even that terribly crippling feeling is more out in the open now than it used to be. Admitting shame is admitting a flaw or a defect in oneself, as if there is something wrong with the person's being. Talking about feeling shame or guilt can make a person feel exposed and vulnerable; it can also lead to grace.
JEANIE MILEY
"Growing Edges: Talking about shame and guilt can lead to grace", Standard-Times, August 19, 2017
Shame makes the world go around.
MORISSEY
"Shame Is The Name"
Where there is shame there is virtue.
JOHANN RIST
attributed, Day's Collacon
He who hath shame seldom sins.
TALMUD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Do but increase a man's pride, and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it; for the greater value a man sets upon himself, the more pains he will take, and the greater hardships he will undergo to avoid shame.
BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE
The Fable of the Bees
Shame is a great concealer of tears.
ALTAHIYA
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
Shame is the turnkey that keeps our evil desires in jail.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl