shame quotes

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn’t betray it I’d be ashamed of myself.

The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month?

I think so many people live their whole life in fear and doubt and shame.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

The only shame is to have none.

I was so ashamed of who I was.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame’s is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That’s why I started in with the props.

Men walk this tightrope where any sign of weakness illicits shame, and so they’re afraid to make themselves vulnerable for fear of looking weak.

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.

As a shame researcher, I know that the very best thing to do in the midst of a shame attack is totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out!

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

Reproach is shame, blame, disgrace, disapproval and a disrespectful attitude toward yourself. When you’re under reproach, your behavior shows it.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

One of the things I did when I discovered this huge importance of being vulnerable is very happily moved away from the shame research, because that’s such a downer, and people hate that topic. It’s not that vulnerability is the upside, but it’s better than shame, I guess.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.