quotations about 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"
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
Most of my life was spent marinating in shame. It felt like part of my genetic makeup. Shame held my head underwater and told me to resign to my fate, to stop fighting. Shame left me feeling my very personhood was flawed.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
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
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 like a lock, it shuts away what must be shut away, and is one of the most important mechanisms of social life.
KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD
Autumn
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"
Suddenly, my need to disappear became stronger than my need to be safe. That's what shame does.
TARA HEDMAN
When Shame is Protective
The only shame is to have none.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
Don't you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can't help?
C. S. LEWIS
Till We Have Faces
He who hath shame seldom sins.
TALMUD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Man
Shame is an attachment to negative self-perception that has been fostered by the perceptions and opinions of others. Shame is a wasted sensibility.
DEVON ST. CLAIRE
"Shame and Negative Self Perception", Empire State News, August 31, 2017
Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation!
JOHN BUNYAN
The Pilgrim's Progress
All is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
Among the problems with shame was that it in fact did not make you shorter or quieter or less visible. You just felt like you were.
J. R. WARD
Lover Enshrined
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
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 is a great concealer of tears.
ALTAHIYA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shame wields its power when you tamp it down and ignore its existence. Expose it to the light, and it becomes a vampire at high noon.
HOWARD ENGLANDER
"It's a shame we have so much trouble talking about shame", Chicago Now, August 29, 2017