Self Reproach Quotes

The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country ... Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away ... Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing. ~ Edward Everett

I still remember - so vividly I can smell the gentle fragrance of the spring air - the afternoon when I decided, after thinking everything over, to abdicate from love as from an insoluble problem. it was in May, a May that was softly summery, with the flowers around my estate already in full bloom, their colors fading as the sun made its slow descent. Escorted by regrets and self-reproach, I walked among my few trees, I had dined early and was wandering, like a symbol, under the useless shadows and faint rustle of leaves. And suddenly I was overwhelmed by a desire to renounce completely, to withdraw once and for all, and I felt an intense nausea for having had so many desires, so many hopes, with so many outer conditions for attaining them and so much inner impossibility of really wanting to attain them. ~ Fernando Pessoa

It may be easily believed that however little of novelty could be added to their fears hopes and conjectures on this interesting subject by its repeated discussion no other could detain them from it long during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish self-reproach she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness. ~ Jane Austen

There is a luxury in self-reproach. ~ Oscar Wilde

The duel may go on for a long time, but self-defense often wins over self-reproach. ~ Pawan Mishra

It was all that vain, egotistical insincerity of self-reproach. By blaming ourselves we take away the right of others to do the same ~ Irvine Welsh

He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. ~ Oscar Wilde

Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach. ~ William Wordsworth

It was this other side of Avery - the fact that he so visibly had an other side - that was helping me finally understand all three of the dimensions in Kafka: that a man could be a sweet, sympathetic, comically needy victim and a lascivious, self-aggrandizing, grudge-bearing bore, and also, crucially, a third thing: a flickering consciousness, a simultaneity of culpable urge and poignant self-reproach, a person in process. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Think, speak, and act. With age comes self-reproach: I might have done more. Therefore now do! ~ Theophile Thore

You love him still and struggle against your love, feeling that it will undo you. He knows this and he will tempt you by every lure he can devise, every deceit he can employ. Sorrow and sin will surely follow if you yield; happiness never can be yours with him; doubt, remorse and self-reproach will kill love, and a time will come when you will find that in gaining a brief joy you have lost your peace forever. Oh, Agatha, be warned in time, do not listen to your own weak heart but to the conscience that nothing can bribe or silence. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security. ~ Thucydides

So often when people hear about the suffering in our world, they feel guilty, but rarely does guilt actually motivate action like empathy or compassion. Guilt paralyzes and causes us to deny and avoid what makes us feel guilty. The goal is to replace our guilt with generosity. We all have a natural desire to help and to care, and we simply need to allow ourselves to give from our love without self-reproach. We each must do what we can. This is all that God asks of us.
- , God Has a Dream, p. 87-88 ~ Desmond Tutu

The healthy attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin committed is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous enough to shake it off and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we, poor human beings at such a disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if we are continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust self-reproach? Every morning comes the light, and a fresh chance of doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let yesterday spoil the God-given to-day? There ~ Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man, I suppose it is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins, - all these are sad sights; but a backslider is a sadder sight still. That true grace shall never be extinguished, and true union with Christ never be broken off, I feel no doubt. But I do believe that a man may fall away so far that he shall lose sight of his own grace, and despair of his own salvation. And if this is not hell, it is certainly the next thing to it! A wounded conscience, a mind sick of itself, a memory full of self-reproach, a heart pierced through with the Lord's arrows, a spirit broken with a load of inward accusation, - all this is a taste of hell. It is a hell on earth. ~ J.C. Ryle

It is the phenomenon somethings called "alienation from self." In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home. ~ Joan Didion

The duel may go on for long, but the self-defense often wins over the self-reproach. ~ Pawan Mishra

There is no wretchedness like self-reproach. ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The only envy (it's rather a self-reproach) I consciously exhibit, is when I read something absolutely brilliant - and I think to myself : 'I wish I'd said that! ~ Stafford Samuel Lakay

If a child stays quiet in the context of extroverted friends, or even prefers time alone, a parent may worry and even send her to therapy. She might be thrilled - she'll finally get to talk about the stuff she cares about, and without interruption! But if the therapist concludes that the child has a social phobia, the treatment of choice is to increasingly expose her to the situations she fears. This behavioral treatment is effective for treating phobias - if that is truly the problem. If it's not the problem, and the child just likes hanging out inside better than chatting, she'll have a problem soon. Her "illness" now will be an internalized self-reproach: "Why don't I enjoy this like everyone else?" The otherwise carefree child learns that something is wrong with her. She not only is pulled away from her home, she is supposed to like it. Now she is anxious and unhappy, confirming the suspicion that she has a problem. ~ Laurie A. Helgoe

There was no word for self-pity in the language of the north-east of Scotland - the nearest being a word which is defined in the Scots dictionary as being 'a term used to express self-reproach on paying too much for something. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best. ~ Anatole France

What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise. ~ Nathaniel Branden

To be sure an European woman would blush to her fingers' ends at the very idea of appearing publicly stark naked; but education and prejudice are everything, since it is an axiom, that where there is no feeling of self-reproach, there can assuredly be no shame. ~ John Gabriel Stedman

We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it is slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach. ~ Charles Dickens

Your American admiral said that he held me in the highest esteem, and thought that I conducted my defense perfectly. He said through his chief of staff that my conduct was beyond reproach and he had the greatest admiration for me. ~ Karl Donitz

Classical liberalism has been reproached with being too obstinate and not ready enough to compromise. It was because of its inflexibility that it was defeated in its struggle with the nascent anticapitalist parties of all kinds. If it had realized, as these other parties did, the importance of compromise and concession to popular slogans in winning the favor of the masses, it would have been able to preserve at least some of its influence. But it has never bothered to build for itself a party organization and a party machine as the anticapitalist parties have done. It has never attached any importance to political tactics in electoral campaigns and parliamentary proceedings. It has never gone in for scheming opportunism or political bargaining.
This unyielding doctrinairism necessarily brought about the decline of liberalism.
The factual assertions contained in these statements are entirely in accordance with the truth, but to believe that they constitute a reproach against liberalism is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of its essential spirit. The ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition
constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas. Nothing can serve as a substitute for an ideology that enhances human li ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Let dissolution come when it will, it can do the Christian no harm, for it will be but a passage out of a prison into a palace; out of a sea of troubles into a haven of rest; out of a crowd of enemies, to an innumerable company of true, loving, and faithful friends; out of shame, reproach, and contempt, into exceeding great and eternal glory. ~ John Bunyan

The divine reproach Jesus felt so exquisitely, because of His meekly standing in
for us, fulfilled yet another prophecy: 'Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full
of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for
comforters, but I found none' (Ps. 69:20). His heart was broken, as He did 'suffer
both body and spirit' (D&C 19:18). He trembled because of pain, and yet He,
amidst profound aloneness, finished His preparations, bringing to pass the
unconditional immortality of all mankind and 'eternal life for all those who would
keep His commandments (Moses 1:39). ~ Neal A. Maxwell

It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach. ~ Charles Horton Cooley

I chased the chaste, and they got scared and scurried. Then I stood still and loved where I was at, and all approached without fear of reproach. ~ Jarod Kintz

Although she failed to grasp the meaning of this speech, she did understand that it might belong to the category of 'scoldings' and scenes of reproach or supplication, and her familiarity with men enabled her, without paying attention to the details of what they said, to conclude that they would not makes such scenes if they were not in love, that since they were in love it was pointless to obey them, they they would be only more in love afterward. ~ Marcel Proust

With respect to relationships within the church, the leader is to be above reproach. Detractors should not have a rung to stand on. If a charge is preferred against him, it fails because his life affords no grounds for reproach or indictment of wrongdoing. His adversary finds no opening for a smear campaign, rumor mongering, or gossip. ~ J. Oswald Sanders

Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have elsewhere said, "looks before her." Nature divides living beings into those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving towards the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It is no fault of theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of each other, but there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling off of life; old people, that of the tomb. Let us not blame these poor children. ~ Victor Hugo

I've worn Niki's pants for two days now. I thought a third day in the same clothes might be pushing it."

Ian shrugged with indifference. "It might send Derian through the roof, but it doesn't bother me. Wear what you want to wear."

Eena wrinkled her nose at him. "Do you really feel that way or are you trying to appear more laissez-faire than Derian?"

"More laissez-faire?"

"Yes. That's a real word."

"Two words actually," he grinned. "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" He coated the words with a heavy French accent. Eena gawked at him.

"Since when do you speak French?"

"I don't." Ian chuckled. "But I did do some research in world history the year I followed you around on Earth. Physics was a joke, but history - that I found fascinating."

Slapping a hand against her chest, Eena exclaimed, "I can't believe it! Unbeknownst to me, Ian actually studied something in high school other than the library's collection of sci-fi paperbacks!"

He grimaced at her exaggerated performance before defending his preferred choice of reading material. "Hey, popular literature is a valuable and enlightening form of world history. You would know that if you read a book or two."

She ignored his reproach and asked with curiosity, "What exactly did you say?"

"In French?"

"Duh, yes."

"Don't 'duh' me, you could easily have been referring to ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

You fear the world too much," she answered gently. "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not? ~ Charles Dickens

To admonish is better than to reproach for admonition is mild and friendly, but reproach is harsh and insulting; and admonition corrects those who are doing wrong, but reproach only convicts them. ~ Epictetus

Susan was frustrated and angry with her disease, which she survived for more than nine years. And my father became the receptacle for her vitriol. 'She screams and carries on when the going gets tough,' he wrote, 'knowing that I understand and will never reproach her, never abandon her, whatever!' He even encouraged her to use him in this manner, suspecting that once she was drained, she became more rational, placid, and cooperative regarding treatment decisions. My dad suspected that his medical expertise had prolonged her life but was even surer that he had helped her mental suffering by letting her know that he 'was always available, even for the most trivial of problems or questions. ~ Barron H. Lerner

I know this issue is very controversial. But unless and until it can be proven that an unborn child is not a human being, can we justify assuming without proof that it isn't? No one has yet offered such proof; indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary. We should rise above bitterness and reproach, and if Americans could come together in a spirit of understanding and helping, then we could find positive solutions to the tragedy of abortion. ~ Ronald Reagan

To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy the distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions than general opinion; and all are so far influenced by a sense of reputation that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope of honour, when other principles have lost their power. ~ Samuel Johnson

A spectre is haunting Europe-the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the Party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the Opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? ~ Karl Marx

I prefer to be accused unjustly, for then I have nothing to reproach myself with, and joyfully offer this to the good Lord. Then I humble myself at the thought that I am indeed capable of doing the thing of which I have been accused. ~ Therese Of Lisieux

For all the folks whose job it was to be ready for [Hurricane] Katrina, but who weren't, from the Oval Office, right down the chain of command to the New Orleans police department, Wal-Mart was a vivid reproach. ~ Charles Fishman

Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch
this declaration of the mastery
of God who, with magnificent irony,
granted me both the gift of books and the night. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

We really have no right to reproach God for having created the world. For Him it was the only possible way of escaping from the accursed void in which He found himself. ~ Leszek Kolakowski

You can walk around this culture now, as a proud supporter of the so called anti-war movement and it's made up of a lot of people I used to know ... I'd like for them to be asked more often than they are, if your advice had been taken over the last 15 or so years; Slobodan Milosevic would still be the dictator of not just Serbia but also of a cleansed and ruined Bosnia and Kosovo. Saddam Hussein would still be the owner of Kuwait as well as Iraq, he would of nearly have doubled his holding of the worlds oil. The Taliban would still be in charge of Afghanistan. Don't you feel a little reproach to your so called high principle anti-war policy? Would that really have led to less violence, less cruelty? ~ Christopher Hitchens

Who shall say that those poor peasants were not acting in the spirit we most venerate, most adore; that theirs was not the true heart language which we cannot choose but love? And what has been their reward? They have sent down their name to be the by-word of all after ages; the worst reproach of the worst men a name convertible with atheism and devil-worship. ~ James Anthony Froude

Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause. Remember your reproaches to those who are filled with foolishness all through the day. Listen to our prayers, for foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard whose winepress you alone have trod. ~ Pope Leo X

Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

... for it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must drown ~ Herman Melville

He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing of a trifle; nor was his anger like the fool's, pumped from the wells of nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; it was the wrath peculiar to ardent natures rudely awakened by the sudden annihilation of a hope
dream, if you will
in which the choicest happinesses were thought to be certainly in reach. In such case nothing intermediate will carry off the passion
the quarrel is with Fate. ~ Lew Wallace

The object isn't to be perfect. The goal isn't to hold back until you've created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all. ~ Seth Godin

If it will reassure you that I'm not a coward, I suppose I could rearrange his face." Quietly he added, "The music has ended," and for the first time Elizabeth realized they were no longer waltzing but were only swaying lightly together. With no other excuse to stand in his arms, Elizabeth tried to ignore her disappointment and step back, but just then the musicians began another melody, and their bodies began to move together in perfect time to the music.
"Since I've already deprived you of your escort for the outing to the village tomorrow," he said after a minute, "would you consider an alternative?"
Her heart soared, because she thought he was going to offer to escort her himself. Again he read her thoughts, but his words were dampening.
"I cannot escort you there," he said flatly.
Her smile faded. "Why not?"
"Don't be a henwit. Being seen in my company is hardly the sort of thing to enhance a debutante's reputation."
Her mind whirled, trying to tally some sort of balance sheet that would disprove his claim. After all, he was a favorite of the Duke of Hammund's…but while the duke was considered a great matrimonial prize, his reputation as a libertine and rake made mamas fear him as much as they coveted him as a son-in-law. On the other hand, Charise Dumont was considered perfectly respectable by the ton, and so this country gathering was above reproach. Except it wasn't, according to Lord Howard. "Is that why you refused to dance with me when ~ Judith McNaught

Truly said, We've talked to people, Mr. Cole. You've an outstanding reputation for diligence, and your integrity is above reproach. ~ Robert Crais

The conscience of the world is so guilty that it always assumes that people who investigate heresies must be heretics; just as if a doctor who studies leprosy must be a leper. Indeed, it is only recently that science has been allowed to study anything without reproach. ~ Aleister Crowley

But after this natural burst of indignation, no man of sense, courage, or prudence will waste his time or his strength in retrospective reproaches or repinings. ~ Robert Peel

Unemployment is a great tragedy. The man who goes about hopelessly seeking work in order to earn bread for his children is a living reproach to civilization. ~ Carlos Saavedra Lamas

Refugees such as ourselves could never dare question the Disneyland ideology followed by most Americans, that theirs was the happiest place on earth. But Dr. Hedd was beyond reproach, for he was an English immigrant. His very existence as such validated the legitimacy of the former colonies, while his heritage and accent triggered the latent Anglophilia and inferiority complex found in many Americans. Dr. Hedd was clearly aware of his privilege and was amused at the discomfort he was causing his American hosts. It ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs; and the flowers were all merry by the roadside; and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds while we busily went on our way and paid no heed.

We sang no glad songs nor played; we went not to the village for barter; we spoke not a word nor smiled; we lingered not on the way. We quickened our pace more and more as the time sped by.

The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade. Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon. The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree, and I laid myself down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass.

My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on; they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distant blue haze. They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries. All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise, but found no response in me. I gave myself up for lost in the depth of a glad humiliation---in the shadow of a dim delight.

The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the maze of shadows and songs.

At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with ~ Rabindranath Tagore

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, a doing evil deeds, 22he has now reconciled b in his body of flesh by his death, c in order to present you holy and blameless and d above reproach before him, 23 e if indeed you continue in the faith, f stable and steadfast, not shifting from g the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed h in all creation [7] under heaven, i and of which I, Paul, became a minister. ~ Anonymous

You absurd boy! Oh, Evelyn, I'm so thankful you've come, but what in the world has detained you? I've been sick with apprehension!"
There was a quizzical gleam in the gentleman's eyes, but he said in accents of deep reproach: "Come, come, Mama - !"
"It may be very well for you to say Come, come, Mama," she retorted, "but when you faithfully promised to return not a day later than -" She broke off, staring down at him in sudden doubt.
Abandoning the portmanteau, the gentleman shrugged the greatcoat from his shoulder, pulled off his hat, and mounted the remaining stairs two at a time, saying still more reproachfully: "No, really, Mama! How can you be so unnatural a parent?"
"Kit!" uttered his unnatural parent, in a smothered shriek. "Oh, my darling, my dearest son! ~ Georgette Heyer

With throbbing veins and burning skin, eyes wild and heavy, thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light were a reproach, and shrunk involuntarily from the day as if he were some foul and hideous thing. ~ Charles Dickens

What did I expect, that you would wrap my rib cage with those enormous hands in which horses must be measured, lifting me overhead with the stern reproach that is every Western woman's sly delight, "You're too thin"? ~ Lionel Shriver