The innocence that feels no risk and is taught no caution, is more vulnerable than guilt, and oftener assailed.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
One of the more gratifying things about guilt is that it makes us feel important.
The one-sided exploitation of existential guilt is thought reform's trump card, and perhaps its most important source of emotional influence over its participants. Revolving around it are issues most decisive to thought reform's outcome.
Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.
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.
She looks at the swings, and I can see she’s imagining what they’d look like if the kids weren’t there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away, despite her love for them. I realize that nothing belongs to her anymore and she belongs to everything.
I would feel so guilty about lying that I would try to stress myself out and work up a headache so I wouldn't have the guilt of not having a bit of the symptom.
A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.
We want to take action out of the desire to contribute to life rather than out of fear, guilt, shame, or obligation.
He that is in haste may contract much guilt in a little time. What we say or do unadvisedly when we are hot, we must unsay or undo again when we are cool, or do worse.
Boundaries emerge from deep within. They are connected to letting go of guilt and shame, and to changing our beliefs about what we deserve. As our thinking about this becomes clearer, so will our boundaries. Boundaries are also connected to a Higher Timing than our own. We’ll set a limit when we’re ready, and not a moment before. So will others. There’s something magical about reaching that point of becoming ready to set a limit. We know we mean what we say; others take us seriously too. Things change, not because we’re controlling others, but because we’ve changed.
Liberals and leftists have been dismissing inconvenient facts by attacking motives for generations. In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, Soviet spies and abettors attacked the motives of their accusers because the fact of their guilt was undeniable. In the 1960s, over a thousand psychiatrists who'd never even met Barry Goldwater signed a petition saying the GOP candidate was too mentally unstable to be president.
Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
As mercy is God's goodness confronting human misery and guilt, so grace is his goodness directed toward human debt and demerit.
The villager, born humbly and bred hard, Content his wealth, and poverty his guard, In action simply just, in conscience clear, By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear, His means but scanty, and his wants but few, Labor his business, and his pleasure too, Enjoys more comforts in a single hour Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.
How vast the benefits divine which we in Christ possess! We are redeemed from guilt and shame and called to holiness. But not for works which we have done, or shall hereafter do, hath God decreed on sinful men salvation to bestow.
To admit guilt for nonexistent crimes is unacceptable to me.
People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt.
I had a lot of guilt and shame when I was running from God, but nothing like when I was running for God. I was always looking for God's approval, and that's where the guilt and shame came out in a big way.