quotations about shame
Though honor might possess certain advantages, yet shame had others, and not inferior.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
Do but increase a man's pride, and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it; for the greater value a man sets upon himself, the more pains he will take, and the greater hardships he will undergo to avoid shame.
BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE
The Fable of the Bees
Time was when most people didn't want to admit feelings shame, but even that terribly crippling feeling is more out in the open now than it used to be. Admitting shame is admitting a flaw or a defect in oneself, as if there is something wrong with the person's being. Talking about feeling shame or guilt can make a person feel exposed and vulnerable; it can also lead to grace.
JEANIE MILEY
"Growing Edges: Talking about shame and guilt can lead to grace", Standard-Times, August 19, 2017
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
You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
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
Once they know they've got a hold of your shame, they can shake it out and hold it up for the all world to see. And you become less than it. You become something disgusting.
KIRSTY EAGER
Raw Blue
The only shame is to have none.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
Sin and shame ever go together; he that would be freed from the last must be sure to shun the company of the first.
ANNE BRADSTREET
Meditations Divine and Moral
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Shame is the turnkey that keeps our evil desires in jail.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.
BRENE BROWN
I Thought It Was Just Me
It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame is a great concealer of tears.
ALTAHIYA
attributed, Day's Collacon
He who hath shame seldom sins.
TALMUD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame is a part of original sin.
JOHN HUMPHREY NOYES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Where there is shame there is virtue.
JOHANN RIST
attributed, Day's Collacon
One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.
LOUIS KRONENBERGER
Company Manners
Shame is always easier to handle if you have someone to share it with.
CRAIG THOMPSON
Blankets
I count him lost, who is lost to shame.
PLAUTUS
Bacchides