quotations about shame
Shame is an uncomfortable companion, it makes you want to climb out of your skin.
ZOE FITZGERALD CARTER
"Charlottesville rage rooted in white shame", San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 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
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
Shame is a part of original sin.
JOHN HUMPHREY NOYES
attributed, Day's Collacon
There's shames a man can never reason away, though he looks back and piles up reasons over them forty dozen deep. And maybe those are the shames a man never should reason away.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
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
It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame ... ever sticks close to the ribs of honor.
THOMAS MIDDLETON
The Mayor of Queenborough; Or Hengist, King of Kent
Nothing is truly infamous, but what is wicked; and therefore, shame can never disturb an innocent and virtuous mind.
WILLIAM SHERLOCK
A Practical Discourse Concerning a Future Judgment
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
SENECA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.
ANAIS NIN
attributed, Why Men Fall Out of Love
To be shame-bound means that whenever you feel any feeling, need or drive, you immediately feel ashamed. The dynamic core of your human life is grounded in your feelings, needs and drives. When these are bound by shame, you are shamed to the core.
JOHN BRADSHAW
Healing the Shame that Binds You
Shame makes the world go around.
MORISSEY
"Shame Is The Name"
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Where there is shame there is virtue.
JOHANN RIST
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.
BRENE BROWN
Daring Greatly
The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.
JOHN BRADSHAW
Healing the Shame that Binds You
It is better to be buried than to live in shame.
PANTHEA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Though honor might possess certain advantages, yet shame had others, and not inferior.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain