Releasing Shame Quotes

When you feel at sea in an abyss of emotions, reconnecting to the beauty of your soul can be difficult, but it is never impossible. ~ Lorraine Nilon

We teach our girls how not to get raped with a sense of doom, a sense that we are fighting a losing battle. When I was writing this novel, friend after friend came to me telling me of something that had happened to them. A hand up their skirt, a boy who wouldn't take no for an answer, a night where they were too drunk to give consent but they think it was taken from them anyway. We shared these stories with one another and it was as if we were discussing some essential part of being a woman, like period cramps or contraceptives. Every woman or girl who told me these stories had one thing in common: shame. 'I was drunk . . . I brought him back to my house . . . I fell asleep at that party . . . I froze and I didn't tell him to stop . . .' My fault. My fault. My fault. When I asked these women if they had reported what had happened to the police, only one out of twenty women said yes. The others looked at me and said, 'No. How could I have proved it? Who would have believed me?' And I didn't have any answer for that. ~ Louise O'Neill

Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since violation of standards, rules, and goals are insufficient in its elicitation unless responsibility can be placed on the self. Stigma may differ from other elicitors of shame and guilt, in part because it is a social appearance factor. The degree to which the stigma is socially apparent is the degree to which one must negotiate the issue of blame, not only for one's self but between one's self and the other who is witness to the stigma. Stigmatization is a much more powerful elicitor of shame and guilt in that it requires a negotiation not only between one's self and one's attributions, but between one's self and the attributions of others. ~ Michael Lewis

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. ~ Bill Clinton

The pain of humanity's most maltreated victims echoes deep within each of us, in the form of our shame or ignorance. ~ Bryant McGill

I'd like to see much more understanding of emotional issues around hurt, abandonment, disappointment, longing, failure and shame, where they stem from and how they drive people and policies brought into public discourse. ~ Susie Orbach

Where the hell are you, Cimil?"
"Popping tags with Roberto," she replied.
"Popping what?" he asked.
Cimil growled. "You shame Macklemore - I'm at a thrift store. Where else would a goddess find a microwave for her potpie and a new pair of pink hot pants? And a Lee Majors doll! Score! ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I should have seen it coming." The words don't surprise me, but they piss me off. I pull away and glare down at her. "Don't you fucking dare, Nell Hawthorne. Don't you dare put this on yourself. You should never have to see shit like this coming." She backs away, stunned and afraid by the intensity I know is radiating off me. "Colton, I just meant he's always shown - " "Stop. Just stop right there. Granted, you should've never gotten involved with a douchetard like him, but that's no excuse for what he did. ~ Jasinda Wilder

Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful- horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of fear. The more he fears, the more he will hate. And hatred is also a great anodyne for shame. ~ C.S. Lewis

Here we also see: what this divinity lacks is not only a sense of shame-and there are also other reasons for conjecturing that in several respects all of the gods could learn from us humans. We humans are-more humane. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When I write, I feel no shame. ~ Annelise Paige

I had only questions, uncertainties, and shame. A kiss that was not a kiss from a man who was not a man. ~ Alexis Hall

But what gave rise to the swaggering self-righteousness I so often encountered among these students? How could one feel guilt and shame, and at the same time parade one's self-righteousness? ~ Bernhard Schlink

It's a shame that physical beauty often has such a negative effect on its occupant. ~ Dov Davidoff

Broken Melody

Broken melody - tear sparkling in the eye
Of a woman loved…
Please past,
Jewel lost,
A trampled dream
Lips unkissed
In the broken melody.

With silent sobs the naked shoulders shake,
Their whiteness dazzling…
Stabbed, stabbed with remorse
For the moments of mindlessness,
For her ruined fate,
For the happiness lost
In the broken melody.

Face hidden in her hands in shame,
Remorsefully the woman weeps,
With heart despairing
(A broken guitar,
A voice stifled
On lips kissed by pain
In the broken melody).
Silent he stands beside the woman weeping

Scolding tears of shame
That dim her eyes.
Some money on the table quickly lays
And goes away,
Leaving the woman lost
In the broken melody.
But when another comes, lust mounts again,

The heated blood
Pounds furiously through the veins,
Benumbing mind
… and only gasps
And grants are heard
In the horrid melody.

(Translated by R.Elsie) ~ Millosh Gjergj Nikolla (Migjeni)

I was a little girl, I imagined that one day I'd fall in love with an amazing man and he'd love me in return. I believed love was enough to overcome anything. But love isn't like that. The heart has the capacity to love beyond anything my little-girl self could have dreamed up. And where I once thought love was a journey and the destination was being together, I now know that love is more like a state of awareness, and sometimes its best expression is in releasing the person from your life. ~ Lexi Ryan

Like other diseases that arouse feelings of shame, AIDS is often a secret, but not from the patient. A cancer diagnosis was frequently concealed from patients by their families; an AIDS diagnosis is at least as often concealed from their families by patients. ~ Susan Sontag

Then Ardent, heavy hearted, turned away; sore for the rusted armor and the wasted days: but as Sir Constant saw his shield, and lo! the lost Emblem of the King was shining once more through its veil of dishonor. For the heart's tears of sorrow had fallen upon the shield, and where they had fallen they had burned away the shame and stain. ~ W.E. Cule

So how does she know?
If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. Maybe coming back to your old life would just be too painful, maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay.
That was my vow. And it's been my secret. My burden. My shame. That I asked her to stay. That she listened ...
I wasn't about to tell her about the promise I'd made. A promise that in the end, I was forced to keep.
But she knew.
No wonder she hates me.
In a weird way, it's a relief. I'm so tired of carrying this secret around. I'm so tired of feeling bad for making her live and feeling angry at her for living without me and feeling like a hypocrite for the whole mess. ~ Gayle Forman

I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It's a shame. ~ Thom Yorke

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. ~ Brene Brown

It is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot tolerate having words wrapped around it. What it craves is secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you stay quiet, you stay in a lot of self-judgment. ~ Brene Brown

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. ~ Truman Capote

The circles of shame are vicious. Painful feelings of shame help cause people to be depressed and suicidal, these in turn become shameful aspects of the self. Being angry does not necessarily cause more anger, being envious does not necessarily cause more envy (though once we envy, we can also envy someone's lack of envy), but, in our culture at least, shame (and envy and self-pity) are things to be ashamed about. The two common feelings of suicide are hopelessness and powerlessness; each is shameful, and this additional experience of shame adds pain on pain. A man who despairs because he feels his prospects of having a family are hopeless also feels he will never lose the feeling of shame over being wifeless and childless. To be powerless to change one's life in ways that others can is cause to feel ashamed of one's powerlessness. ~ David L. Conroy

Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel.
"You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know," Haymitch says. ~ Suzanne Collins

The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else. ~ J.K. Rowling

The past is an annoying critic whose loud tirade of accusatory declamations detracts me from experiencing happiness. Loitering within the craggy shadows of my lithograph identification apparatus is the splayed viscera from the blood-soaked entrails of an egotistical self's riddled history. The unbidden past tugs at my sleeves similar to a persistent tramp demanding an attentive accounting. A disgraced personal self refuses to release its despotic hold upon my guilt-ridden psyche without exacting a sacrificial tithing. Strewn wreckage from my history of scandalous debacles cast a pall of shame over the present. The shambles of my disreputable past stifles my present desire to celebrate in the rudimentary grandeur of living robustly. With the past snarling its reproach, my mind is preoccupied with ugly thoughts, and every day reduced to a tiresome and worrisome filled existence that halts my progress towards achieving an envisaged life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Don't hang up. For God's sake, Eva, we're married . We're in love. There's no shame in that. So what if it's crazy? It's us . It's who we are. You need to come to grips with that. ~ Sylvia Day

As you say, DeWar, our shame comes from the comparison. We know we might be generous and compassionate and good, and could behave so, yet something else in our nature makes us otherwise." She smiled a small, empty smile. "Yes, I feel something I recognise as love. Something I remember, something I may discuss and mill and theorise over." She shook her head. "But it is not something I know. I am like a blind woman taking about how a tree must look, or a cloud. Love is something I have a dim memory of, the way someone who went blind in their early childhood might recall the sun, or the face of their mother. I know affection from my fellow whore-wives, DeWar, and I sense regard from you and feel some in return. I have a duty to the Protector, just as he feels he has a duty to me. As far as that goes, I am content. But love? That is for the living, and I am dead. ~ Iain M. Banks

Misinformation about the Bible's answers to these issues has led to much wrong teaching about boundaries. Not only that, but many clinical psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety disorders, guilt problems, shame issues, panic disorders, and marital and relational struggles, find their root in conflicts with boundaries. ~ Henry Cloud

He finally cleared his throat. "Well, huh."
"Yeah," I said. "What now?"
"Well" - he cleared his throat again - "I guess you and I go. I mean, unless you really don't want to."
Why put it on me to bail out?
"Do you want to?" I asked.
"Yeah. I really do. I had to talk Dad into giving me the afternoon off. And since I don't usually go to a lot of trouble to fix lunch, it seems a shame to waste the effort. Besides, there's the thing I want you to see."
He said all of this while staring at the door like he was talking to it. I almost expected it to respond. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

You may think you see plenty of stars, friend reader, but you are wrong. Night is both blacker and more brilliant than you can imagine, and the sky a glory that puts to shame the most splendid jewels at Renwick's. ~ Marie Brennan

Shame is the undercurrent that keeps you living in the belief that you are unworthy of all the bounty life has to offer. Somewhere along the way, we have internalized the belief that we are - in our deepest selves - defective and wrong. Shame is not a natural emotion. Babies aren't born feeling shame. We manufacture it within ourselves, as punishment for not adhering to the norms of society…Just for today, see what it feels like to open those clenched fists - that clenched heart - and receive every good thing ~ Panache Desai

Do not fear those who bear you ill will, they soon shall fall in shame, read Georgina, cackling with mirth. ~ Leonora Carrington

How would you be able to detect a fart over your natural odor, Sanza?" "For shame," said Galdo. "There's no Sanzas here, remember? I'm an Asino." "Oh yes," said Locke with a yawn. "Yes, you certainly are. ~ Scott Lynch

It's a bizarre act of self-mutilation to say that 'I don't get on with science fiction and fantasy, therefore I'm never going to read any'. What a shame. All those great books that you're cutting yourself off from. ~ David Mitchell

Work is not a shame. Laziness is a shame. ~ Hesiod

I think most survivors transfer the shame of their experience into their present-day healing and become ashamed of themselves for needing the time and support ~ Jeanne McElvaney

A beardless cynic is the shame of nature. ~ John Milton

Perfectionism is not abut healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement, and shame. It's a shield. ~ Brene Brown

The young have stolen our youthfulness, and flaunt it without shame. ~ Mason Cooley

The fact is, I've been releasing records longer than I've been releasing films, or at least exactly as long. ~ Riz Ahmed

Yep." There was no shame in his answer. "My ego really couldn't handle having a misfire right now." "As opposed some other, more opportune time?" He laughed and pulled her jacket open. The zipper made a rasping sound as he slid it open, revealing the concave hollow of her belly beneath the same tan t-shirt he wore. "There really isn't a good time for that," he said. ~ Anonymous

the sense of shame I feel about an incident is proportionate not just to the gravity of the situation, but also to the number of people who witnessed it. At ~ Paula Hawkins

I've got to learn how to live. If I can't swing that, it'll be a damn shame," Luo ~ Liu Cixin

The offended party must give the hurtful words and actions to Christ. Trust that He will handle the situation exactly in a way that demonstrates Christ's love for His people. Let go of what has been taken and rest in the promises of God. Thus, forgiveness is not about forgetting or getting even; it is about releasing the hurt and trusting the Savior. ~ Bill Henard

The Cutter leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine. 'Fool me once,' he whispered, 'shame on you.' He pressed the bridge of his nose against mine, his breath burning the back of my throat. His voice was rough and furious. 'Fool me twice, and I will cut out your fucking throat. ~ Brenna Yovanoff