Guilt

Sunday, May 21, 2017 – Guilt

Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation. ~ Henry Fielding

Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal. ~ Robert South

Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat out denial of the gospel of grace. ~ Brennan Manning

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Guilt is anger directed at ourselves – at what we did or did not do. Resentment is anger directed at others – at what they did or did not do. ~ Peter McWilliams

How blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver in comparison with those of guilt. ~ Robert Blair

Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but guilt is simply God’s way of letting you know that you’re having too good a time. ~ Dennis Miller

I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt. ~ Ben Hecht

Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt. ~ William Cowper

Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. ~ Henry Miller

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt. ~ Franz Kafka

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death. ~ Coco Chanel

Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier? ~ John Steinbeck

What we call real estate – the solid ground to build a house on – is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases. ~ Friedrich Schiller

Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn’t. ~ Alan Cohen

The extent of one man’s guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Food, love, career, and mothers, the four major guilt groups. ~ Cathy Guisewite

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted. ~ Franz Kafka

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. ~ Jane Austen

Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway. ~ Isabelle Holland

Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt. ~ Susan Sontag

Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt. ~ Captain Beefheart

True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. ~ R. D. Laing

How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit. ~ V. S. Pritchett

Guilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment; only there does its satisfaction lie. ~ Lawrence Durrell

A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest. ~ Jonathan Kozol

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty – as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it. ~ Florence King

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt. ~ George Sewell

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do. ~ Voltaire

I’ve got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts – you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn’t do, right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing. ~ D. D. Barant, Dying Bites

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. ~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.~ Tacitus

When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back. ~ Woody Allen

I’m not interested in anybody’s guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason… Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we’ve used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are. ~ James Baldwin

We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way. ~ John Steinbeck