Resenting and Forgiving

Forgiveness is a funny thing;
It warms the heart and cools the sting.
-William Arthur Ward (1921 - 1994)
 
“Without forgiveness life is governed by . . . an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.” -Roberto Assagioli (1888 - 1974)
 
“Don’t carry a grudge. While you’re carrying the grudge the other guy’s out dancing.” -Buddy Hackett (1924 - 2003)
 
“Forgiving is not forgetting, it’s letting go of the hurt.” -Mary McLeod Bethune (Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (1875 - 1955))
 
“Time spent in getting even would be better spent in getting ahead.” -Author Unknown
 
“Resentment or grudges do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings but every day and every night of your life, they are eating at you.” -Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)
 
“The best revenge is a vow to never be like the one who hurt you.” -Author Unknown
 
“Forgiveness means letting go of the past.” -Gerald Jampolsky (Gerald Gersham Jampolsky (born 1925))
 
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” -Catherine Ponder (born 1927)
 
“The best revenge is massive success.” -Frank Sinatra (Francis Albert ‘Frank’ Sinatra (1915 - 1998))
 
“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” -Norman Cousins (1915 - 1990): as quoted in the “Saturday Review” (15 April 1978)
 
“If you hug to yourself any resentment against anybody else, you destroy the bridge by which God would come to you.” -Peter Marshall (1902 - 1949)
 
“Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.” -Oscar Wilde (Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900))
 
“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.” -Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818 - 1885))
 
“I think there are two kinds of forgiveness: the kind that when you forgive you’re also giving them another chance, or the kind where you forgive, but move on without them. Use both wisely.” -S. B.
 
“Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.” -Suzanne Somers (pseudonym of Suzanne Mahoney (born 1946)) at www.suzannesomers.com

Let Bygones Be Bygones
 
Let’s let bygones be bygones
     And start all over again.
Let us forget we parted
     And be the same as we started.
 
Remember, the sunshine
     Must always follow the rain.
So, let’s let bygones be bygones
     And start all over again.
 
by Joseph George Gilbert (1933), stanzas 1 and 2

​“The heaviest thing to carry is a grudge.” -Author Unknown
 
“You must forgive those who trespass against you before you can look to Heaven for forgiveness.” -Author Unknown: “The Talmud”
 
“When you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.” -Author Unknown
 
Good, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
-Robert Browning (1812 - 1889): “Dedication to La Saisiaz,” as quoted in “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” (1919)
 
“Forgiving someone doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened. Rather, it means releasing the burden of anger and obsession so you can move on with your life.” -Charles F. Glassman: “Brain Drain: The Breakthrough That Will Change Your Life” (2009)
 
“I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.” -Bette Midler (born 1945)
 
“He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach Heaven; for all men need to be forgiven.” -George Herbert (1593 - 1633)
 
“The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling him who has injured us.” -Jane Porter (1776 - 1850)
 
“Let us forget and forgive injuries.” -Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 - 1616): “Don Quixote de la Mancha” (1605 - 1615), Part I, Book IV, Chapter 3
 
“The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.” -Eddie Vedder (born 1964)
 
“Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business.” -Robin Casarjian
 
“Don’t get even . . . get odd!” -Author Unknown
 
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” -Paul Boese (Paul Lewis Boese (1923 - 1976))
 
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” -Marianne Williamson (born 1952)
 
“This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.” -Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626): “Essays” (1597)
 
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” -Jesus of Nazareth: as quoted in “The Bible,” ‘Luke,’ chapter 23, verse 34

“Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness.” -David Augsburger (David W. Augsburger (born 1938))
 
“How often could things be remedied by a word. How often is it left unspoken.” -Norman Douglas (1868 - 1952)
 
“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.” -Jonathan Lockwood Huie (born 1945)
 
“No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.” -George Nathan (George Jean Nathan (1882 - 1958))
 
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” -Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi (1869 - 1948))
 
“Forgive, son; men are men; they needs must err.” -Euripides (480 B.C.E. - 406 B.C.E.)
 
“Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.” -Buddha (also known as Siddhārtha Guatama or Shakyamuni Buddha (about 563 B.C.E. - about 483 B.C.E.))
 
“It is easier to forgive and forget than to resent and remember.” -Author Unknown
 
“We think that forgiveness is weakness, but it’s absolutely not; it takes a very strong person to forgive.” -T. D. Jakes (Thomas Dexter Jakes, Senior (born 1957))
 
“Forgiveness is the final form of love.” -Reinhold Niebuhr (Karl Paul Reinhold ‘Reinhold’ Niebuhr (1892 - 1971))
 
“Holding on to anger, resentment, and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache, and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.” -Joan Lunden (born 1950)
 
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” -Charlotte Brontë (1816 - 1855): “Jane Eyre” (1847), chapter VI
 
“Nothing produces such odd result as trying to get even.” -Franklin P. Jones (Franklin Pierce Jones (1908 - 1980))
 
“Let It Go: Forgive So That You Can Be Forgiven” (2013): title of book by T. D. Jakes (Thomas Dexter Jakes, Senior (born 1957))
 
“Hold hands, not grudges.” -Author Unknown
 
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882): “Table-Talk” (1857), ‘Driftwood’
 
“Sometimes the best revenge is to smile and move on.” -Author Unknown
 
“To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.” -Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
 
“Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.” -Byron Katie (born 1942)
 
“People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.” -Helen Prejean (born 1939)
 
“I must forgive without noise or fuss.” -Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)
 
“Forgiving is not a gift to someone else. Forgiving is your gift to yourself - a great gift - the gift of happiness.” -Jonathan Lockwood Huie (born 1945)
 
“He who forgives ends the quarrel.” -Author Unknown
 
“Forgiveness is not an emotion, it’s a decision.” -Randall Worley
 
“Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.” -Booker T. Washington (Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856 - 1915))
 
“Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.” -Les Brown (Leslie Calvin ‘Les’ Brown (born 1945))
 
“Some people insist - often very forcefully - that we must both forgive and forget, or that we have to either forgive or forget . . . as if those are our only options. Those are not our only options. When what has been done to us is horrendous, it becomes unforgiveable and unforgettable, so we can only choose an eventual third option: We neither forgive nor forget, but we learn to move past the pain, the fear, the disappointment, and the constant awareness, to a point at which we can live our lives.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
 
“Forgiveness does not mean excusing.” -C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis (1898 - 1963))
 
“The more a man knows, the more he forgives.” -Catherine II (also known as Catherine the Great (1729 - 1796))
 
“Forgotten is forgiven.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald (Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940))
 
“Do not burn bridges that you might have to cross again someday.” -Author Unknown
 
“Any man can seek revenge; it takes a king or prince to grant a pardon.” -Arthur J. Rehrat
 
“The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.” -Henry Boye
 
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” -Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744): “An Essay on Criticism” (1711)
 
I forgive myself for having believed for so long that . . .
I was never good enough to have, get, be what I wanted.
-Ceanne DeRohan
 
“Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.” -Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626): “Essays” (1625), ‘Of Revenge’
 
“Let not the Sun go down upon your wrath.” -Author Unknown: as quoted in “The Bible,” Ephesians,’ chapter 4, verse 26
 
“Forgiveness is not something we do for other people. We do it for ourselves to get well and move on.” -Author Unknown
 
“Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent free in your head.” -Author Unknown
 
“I once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.” -Thomas Buxton (Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786 - 1845))
 
“Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself.” -Harriet Nelson (Harriet Uts Nelson)
 
“I forgive people, but that doesn’t mean I trust them.” -Author Unknown
 
“Forgiving people can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, when you fear that people will wrong you again, and that once again, just as before, you will be powerless to stop them.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
 
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” -Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (C.E. 121 - C.E. 180): “The Meditations” (C.E. 167), Book 6, meditation 5
 
“Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds.” -Sidney and Suzanne Simon
 
“Nothing on Earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.” -Friedrich Nietzsche (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)): “Ecce Homo” (English: “Behold the Man”) (1888)
 
“Forgive, forget. Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours. Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.” -Phillips Brooks (1835 - 1893)
 
“Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury.” -E. H. Chapin (Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814 - 1880)): “Living Words” (1861)
 
“Forgiveness is the noblest vengeance.” -H. G. Bohn (Henry George Bohn (1796 - 1884))
 
“Living well is the best revenge.” -Author Unknown: as quoted in George Herbert (1593 - 1633): “Jacula Prudentum; or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. Selected by Mr. George Herbert” (1651), proverb 520
 
“We may not know how to forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing practice.” -Louise Hay (Louise Lynn Hay (1926 - 2017))
 
“Forgive thyself little, and others much.” -Robert Leighton (1611 - 1689)
 
“It is never too late to mend.” -Author Unknown
 
This is MFOL! . . . accompaniment for the journey called life . . .