quotations about shame
The only shame is to have none.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
Shame wields its power when you tamp it down and ignore its existence. Expose it to the light, and it becomes a vampire at high noon.
HOWARD ENGLANDER
"It's a shame we have so much trouble talking about shame", Chicago Now, August 29, 2017
Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It's the fear that we aren't good enough.
DEBRA CAMPBELL
"Peeling the Onion of Abuse and Shame", Huffington Post, September 14, 2017
Most of my life was spent marinating in shame. It felt like part of my genetic makeup. Shame held my head underwater and told me to resign to my fate, to stop fighting. Shame left me feeling my very personhood was flawed.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
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 should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us.
ANN PATCHETT
Truth and Beauty
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Man
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
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
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
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
Once they know they've got a hold of your shame, they can shake it out and hold it up for the all world to see. And you become less than it. You become something disgusting.
KIRSTY EAGER
Raw Blue
If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.
BRENE BROWN
Daring Greatly
Shame makes the world go around.
MORISSEY
"Shame Is The Name"
The way out of shame is to own it, and go on being your best, showing up rather than hiding because of it. Don't let shame own you and keep you small.
DEBRA CAMPBELL
"Peeling the Onion of Abuse and Shame", Huffington Post, September 14, 2017
While shame is something a person imposes upon themselves, shaming is a thing that society imposes on people and on women in far greater numbers than men.
GABRIELLE ZEVIN
interview, Seattle Pi, August 26, 2017
Worthlessness, depravity, torment and fear. The definition is up to you. No matter where you stand, shame breeds nothing but negativity, which can cause you problems throughout your journey.
CORINE GATTI
"7 Ways to Beat Shame", Belief Net, April 14, 2017
One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.
LOUIS KRONENBERGER
Company Manners
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
Shame