Forgiveness Quotes, Sayings
Forgiveness is one of the most elusive virtues of the modern age; it just doesn’t come easy. These forgiveness quotes can help you overcome grudges and move on to a more peaceful, stronger, and healthy life.
Best forgiveness quotes and sayings
Find out why better health and well-being is linked to forgiveness. These words offer wisdom, hope, and inspiration for a better life.
Let’s begin with ten of our favorite quotes about forgiveness.
1. Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.
Buddha
2. To err is human, to forgive, divine.
Alexander Pope
3. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
Paul Boese
4. Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Mark Twain
5. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
6. True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”
Oprah Winfrey
7. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi
8. To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.
Confucius
9. The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.
Marianne Williamson
10. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes
1. Forgiveness and love quotes
There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.
Bryant H. McGill
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.
Mother Theresa
Compassion, love, and forgiveness, however, are not luxuries. They are fundamental for our survival.
Dalai Lama
Forgiveness is a powerful expression of the love within our soul.
Anthony Douglas
Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.
Marlene Dietrich
I believe forgiveness is the best form of love in any relationship. It takes a strong person to say they’re sorry and an even stronger person to forgive.
Yolanda Hadid
A heart filled with anger has no room for love.
Joan Lunden
Forgiveness is the final form of love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.
Jon Krakauer
About relationships
A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
Robert Quillen
No matter how much you love someone — the capacity of that love is meaningless if it outweighs your capacity to forgive.
Colleen Hoover
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
Robert Jordan
There isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.
Mark Twain
Love is forgiving, accepting, moving on, embracing, and all encompassing. And if you’re not doing that for yourself, you cannot do that with anyone else.
Steve Maraboli
To your girlfriend or boyfriend
Forgiveness eliminates the wounds of the past from the mind and the heart.
Iyanla Vanzant
Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.
William Arthur Ward
For friends
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
William Blake
A broken friendship that is mended through forgiveness can be even stronger than it once was.
Stephen Richards
Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.
Marvin J. Ashton
We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.
Sir. Francis Bacon
2. Forgiveness quotes for yourself
I forgive myself and set myself free.
Louise Hay
Forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It’s not for the other person.
Maya Angelou
The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.
Steve Maraboli
The act of forgiveness takes place in our own mind. It really has nothing to do with the other person.
Louise Hay
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.
Tony Robbins
Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself.
Harriet Nelson
It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
Maya Angelou
For the new year
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
Hannah Arendt
It’s not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you.
Tyler Perry
Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.
Criss Jami
Forgive, forget. Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours.
Phillip Brooks
3. Short forgiveness sayings
Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
Norman Cousins
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
William Shakespeare
What is forgiven is usually well remembered.
Louis Dudek
Forgotten is forgiven.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.
Robert Brault
Forgiveness is an expression of love.
Gary Chapman
Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive.
Wm. Paul Young
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
Mother Teresa
Pray you now, forget and forgive.
William Shakespeare
Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.
Unknown
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
Indira Gandhi
Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.
Isaac Friedmann
Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.
Alice Duer Miller
An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
Kahlil Gibran
4. Forgiveness quotes on life
Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
George MacDonald
A life lived without forgiveness is a prison.
William Arthur Ward
We are all on a life long journey and the core of its meaning, the terrible demand of its centrality is forgiving and being forgiven.
Martha Kilpatrick
Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.
Roberto Assagioli
As long as you don’t forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy a rent-free space in your mind.
Isabelle Holland
About peace
Let us forgive each other — only then will we live in peace.
Leo Tolstoy
Compassion, forgiveness, these are the real, ultimate sources of power for peace and success in life.
Dalai Lama
You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.
Nelson Mandela
About happiness
One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
Rita Mae Brown
To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.
Robert Muller
How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself.
Publilius Syrus
I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn’t a final destination. You don’t one day get there and get to stay.
Deb Caletti
To forgive and forget
To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius.
Joyce Cary
Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don’t want the other person to forget that we forgave.
Ivern Ball
5. Spiritual forgiveness quotes
Man has two spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.
Dalai Lama
Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it.
Mason Cooley
Let’s shake free this gravity of judgment, And fly high on the wings of forgiveness.
India Arie
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.
C.S. Lewis
Forgiveness is not a feeling — it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God.
Joyce Meyer
If you never know forgiveness, You’ll never know the blessings that God gives.
Rumi
To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
C.S. Lewis
6. Forgiveness wisdom quotes
Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.
Emma Goldman
Forgiveness isn’t approving what happened. It’s choosing to rise above it.
Robin Sharma
The remedy for life’s broken pieces is not classes, workshops or books. Don’t try to heal the broken pieces. Just forgive.
Iyanla Vanzant
Deep thoughts on forgiveness
He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
George Herbert
Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
Corrie Ten Boom
Forgiveness is a sign that the person who has wronged you means more to you than the wrong they have dealt.
Ben Greenhalgh
To understand somebody else as a human being, I think, is about as close to real forgiveness as one can get.
David Small
Enlightening sayings
Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
Desmond Tutu
Forgive as often as you must and don’t put limits on it.
Joyce Meyer
Do forgive all before you go to sleep, you’ll be forgiven before you get up.
Lord Krishna
True forgiveness is not an action after the fact, it is an attitude with which you enter each moment.
David Ridge
Zen and forgiveness
To understand everything is to forgive everything.
Buddha
To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.
Confucius
7. Forgiveness quotes about healing
The only way to experience healing and peace is to forgive.
Desmond Tutu
We don’t forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need it — because we need it.
Bree Despain
Blame keeps wounds open. Only forgiveness heals.
Thomas S. Manson
Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
Cherie Carter-Scott
Forgiveness works like a miracle. It takes away the ill-feelings which gnaw at our own mind.
Dada J. P. Vaswani
About becoming stronger
Forgiveness is often regarded as a weakness. But forgiveness holds great power. Forgiveness reveals your inner strength. For it is only the strong who can forgive.
Dada J. P. Vaswani
Only the brave know how to forgive. A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.
Laurence Sterne
There is nothing more classy or powerful than showing forgiveness and grace to someone who does not deserve it.
Unknown
8. Famous forgiveness quotes
Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.
Oprah Winfrey
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy
One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.
Socrates
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
Abraham Lincoln
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Bruce Lee
From books, literature, and authors
Forgiveness is God’s greatest gift.
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code
Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter
It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done.
Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.
Charles Dickens
We hope this look at the best forgiveness quotes enlightens your mind to the power of letting go. For more interesting quote lists, be sure to check out the following articles:
By Greg Johnson | Published 5/13/2022
