Shame Quotes

“The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases. Even without memory, the life is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth and decay; but intense memory forces a man to own his blameworthy past. With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Temporis filia veritas; cui me obstetricari non pudet.

Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.”
― Johannes Kepler

“It's shame that lines my pockets, shame that keeps the Barrel teeming with fools ready to put on a mask just so they can have what they want with no one the wiser for it. We can endure all kinds of pain. It's shame that eats men whole.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You

“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

“Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“May I take off clothes covering shame at the border, leaving them hanging on dry trees of arrogance, and run by wearing the rays of the sun.”
― Suman Pokhrel

“My love,
you are driving the entire world mad.
The nightingales are committing suicide
one by one out of jealousy of your voice.
The roses took one glance at your beauty
and folded themselves from shame.
The trees now only whisper your name
and the sky hasn’t stopped crying since you looked up.
Have pity on us, my love.
We have already broken all the mirrors and glass
out of fear that you will forget us
and fall in love with yourself
once you see what we all
cannot stop seeing.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“Beauty shames the ugly. Strength shames the weak. Death shames the living - and the Ideal shames us all.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Jordan B. Peterson: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few. ”
― John Updike

“Every child that receives life advice should keep in mind that in every parent’s past, there’s leftover booze and contraceptives.”
― Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic

“[I]f the name of wife appears more sacred and more valid, sweeter to me is ever the word friend, or, if thou be not ashamed, concubine ... And thou thyself wert not wholly unmindful of that ... [as in the narrative of thy misfortunes] thou hast not disdained to set forth sundry reasons by which I tried to dissuade thee from our marriage, from an ill-starred bed; but wert silent as to many, in which I preferred love to wedlock, freedom to a bond. I call God to witness, if Augustus, ruling over the whole world, were to deem me worthy of the honour of marriage, and to confirm the whole world to me, to be ruled by me forever, dearer to me and of greater dignity would it seem to be called thy concubine than his empress.”
― Héloïse, The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse

“I drew it over my skin like a violins bow, No one would ever hear the song of my shame.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“She hugged me and I could feel the heat rise in my face, either from shame or love, like there was a difference.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“This is my real bed-rock objection to the eastern systems. They decry all manly virtue as dangerous and wicked, and they look upon Nature as evil. True enough, everything is evil relatively to Adonai; for all stain is impurity. A bee's swarm is evil — inside one's clothes. "Dirt is matter in the wrong place." It is dirt to connect sex with statuary, morals with art.
Only Adonai, who is in a sense the True Meaning of everything, cannot defile any idea. This is a hard saying, though true, for nothing of course is dirtier than to try and use Adonai as a fig-leaf for one's shame.
To seduce women under the pretense of religion is unutterable foulness; though both adultery and religion are themselves clean. To mix jam and mustard is a messy mistake.”
― Aleister Crowley, Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary

“Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste?”
― Harlan Ellison, Deathbird Stories

“Sexual abuse is also a secret crime, one that usually has no witness. Shame and secrecy keep a child from talking to siblings about the abuse, even if all the children in a family are being sexually assaulted. In contrast, if a child is physically or emotionally abused, the abuse is likely to occur in front of the other children in the family, at least some of the time. The physical and emotional abuse becomes part of the family's explicit history. Sexual abuse does not.”
― Renee Fredrickson, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“Shame I do feel. And I know there is something all wrong about me—believe me. Sometimes I shock myself.”
― Sophocles, Electra

“Abuse is a parasite that feeds off hate and shame, growing in size and strength with silence.”
― Nikki Sex, Accuse

“Sometimes the shame is not the beatings, not the rape.
The shaming is in being asked to stand judgment.”
― Meena Kandasamy, When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife

“The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“I wouldn’t want you to get in the shower and then pass out or some such. How about if I help you get out of your clothes? I’m an expert in platonic undressings.” He gave me that wicked smile. “Give it a rest. I’m not going to strip naked in front of you, and I’d rather pee in private.” “Half the injuries in a home happen in the bathroom. What kind of friend would I be to let you face that kind of danger alone? I mean, sure, you walked out of death, but this is a shower.” “Shame. Get out of my bathroom.”
― Devon Monk, Magic at the Gate

“What the hell?” I muttered. Then I realized it was Jack Quinn’s car. Jack was a Hound and Bea’s boyfriend. The left blinker flashed on for just a second, and then Jack drove at speed again.

“Zayvion, I’m sorry to tell you I think I have a crush on another man.”

“Who is this unfortunate and soon-to-be-dead fool?” he asked.

“Jack. That’s his car. He must have been waiting for us, or maybe he followed us.”

“Jack Quinn has been following us?” Shame said.

“And now he’s taking us to Collins, I think.”

“Or a trap,” Shame said.

“He’s a Hound, Shame.”

“My statement stands.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” I turned left, following the car. “Hounds are loyal. Jack and Bea told me they’d help me if they could. They’re not going to turn against me while I’m in trouble.”

“What happens when you’re not in trouble?” Shame asked.

“Don’t know. It’s never happened.”
― Devon Monk, Magic Without Mercy

“Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

“And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.”
― Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin Martyr, Addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius; Prefaced by Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Justin

“Janna knew - Rikki knew — and I knew, too — that becoming Dr Cameron West wouldn't make me feel a damn bit better about myself than I did about being Citizen West. Citizen West, Citizen Kane, Sugar Ray Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Robinson miso, miso soup, black bean soup, black sticky soup, black sticky me. Yeah. Inside I was still a fetid and festering corpse covered in sticky blackness, still mired in putrid shame and scorching self-hatred. I could write an 86-page essay comparing the features of Borderline Personality Disorder with those of Dissociative Identity Disorder, but I barely knew what day it was, or even what month, never knew where the car was parked when Dusty would come out of the grocery store, couldn't look in the mirror for fear of what—or whom—I'd see.
~ Dr Cameron West describes living with DID whilst studying to be a psychologist.”
― Cameron West, First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple

“Cats have no guilt and very little shame.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“Guilt, of course, is feeling bad about one's actions, but shame is feeling bad about oneself.”
― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“I lie there for a while in the dusk, then make a decision, little knowing how it will affect every facet of my life and fiber of my being for the rest of my life: I say no to shame.”
― Alan Cumming, Not My Father's Son

“Jung observed that everyone has a pathological secret, something so scary, so shameful perhaps, so humiliating, that one will protect it nearly any cost.”
― James Hollis, Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives