Quotes about Shame

When a wise man does not understand, he says: I do not understand. The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.

Sip the shame so you won't have to guzzle the regret.

It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of it in myself. I am not always a good daughter, even though my lacks are in areas different from her complaints. Haven't I learned yet that the desire to be perfect is always disastrous and, at the least, loses me in the mire of false guilt?

If conscience is to do its work and the contrite heart is to feel its proper remorse, it is necessary for each individual to confess his sin by name. The confession must be intensely personal. In a meeting of ministers, probably no single sin should be acknowledged with deeper shame than the sin of prayerlessness. Each one of us needs to confess that we are guilty of this.

Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation!

Faithful: What! why he (Shame) objected against religion itself; he said it was a pitiful, low, sneaking business for a man to mind religion; he said that a tender conscious was an unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie himself up from that hectoring liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of the times."

What God says is best, indeed is best, though all men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest; and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates him: Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation.

Let me not therefore, O my God, be ashamed of these fears, but let me feel them to determine where his fear did, in a present submitting of all to thy will.

I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.

If either wealth or poverty are come by honesty, there is no shame.

I have deserved neither so much honor or so much disgrace.

Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.