quotations about shame
Love taught him shame, and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
JOHN DRYDEN
Cymon and Iphigenia
If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.
BRENE BROWN
Daring Greatly
Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is wholly imperfect.
BULWER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
SENECA
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
The way out of shame is to own it, and go on being your best, showing up rather than hiding because of it. Don't let shame own you and keep you small.
DEBRA CAMPBELL
"Peeling the Onion of Abuse and Shame", Huffington Post, September 14, 2017
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
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
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
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
Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation!
JOHN BUNYAN
The Pilgrim's Progress
Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
It is safest to be moderately base--to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.
SYDNEY SMITH
The Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith
Shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us.
ANN PATCHETT
Truth and Beauty
Suddenly, my need to disappear became stronger than my need to be safe. That's what shame does.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
Only man can blush.
No other creature knows of shame.
Why have we wandered so far away
From simple honesty?
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
Shame need not crouch
In such an earth as ours
Stand--stand erect;
The universe is yours.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Not with a Club, the Heart is broken"
You made me cry
When you said goodbye
Isn't that a shame
My tears fell like rain
Isn't that a shame
You're the one to blame
JOHN LENNON
"Ain't That a Shame"
Now there's a lifestyle
With painted lips
Now there's a lifestyle
Everybody wants it
But it don't exist
And I said shame...
EURYTHMICS
"Shame"