Shame Quotes

“If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal!”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“So I let my shame own me, kill me, wilt me away into a thousand dead flakes, knowing if I kept it all in, she would never have to learn the dirtiness that was forever inside me--the bad, the ugly, the twisted. She could go on living her life happy, just like she deserved.”
― Jessica Sorensen, The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden

“Do not be ashamed of help.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“That's how life goes on - protected by the silence that anesthetizes shame.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to my grief. It felt better, somehow, to be helpless. I didn't feel ashamed.”
― S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep

“Children who are victimized through sexual abuse often begin to develop deeply held tenets that shape their sense of self: 'My worth is my sexuality. I'm dirty and shameful. I have no right to my own physical boundaries.' That shapes their ideas about the world around them: 'No one will believe me. Telling the truth results in bad consequences. People can't be trusted.' It doesn't take long for children to being to act in accordance with these belief systems.
For girls who have experienced incest, sexual abuse, or rape, the boundaries between love, sex, and pain become blurred. Secrets are normal, and shame is a constant.”
― Rachel Lloyd, Girls Like Us

“But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Feelings and stories of unworthiness and shame are perhaps the most binding element in the trance of fear. When we believe something is wrong with us, we are convinced we are in danger. Our shame fuels ongoing fear, and our fear fuels more shame. The very fact that we feel fear seems to prove that we are broken or incapable. When we are trapped in trance, being fearful and bad seem to define who we are. The anxiety in our body, the stories, the ways we make excuses, withdraw or lash out—these become to us the self that is most real.”
― Tara Brach

“We are all ashamed in one way or another. Who among us is not stained by the past?”
― Jenna Blum, Those Who Save Us

“You can't take credit for your talents, but it matters that you use them. You can't really be blamed for your weaknesses, but it matters that you correct them. So pride and shame don't make a lot of sense, in the final analysis, but they weren't much fun anyway.”
― Sam Harris

“Embarrassing facts, those would really help our children remember their classroom lessons better.”
― Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic

“There is no shame in strategic retreat if it lets you remain strong enough to go after the enemy later.”
― Jane Lindskold, The Buried Pyramid

“J_Doe032692 wrote: I am not a thin person. However this does not give people the right to taunt me, calling me ugly and worthless, telling me to kill myself because no one will ever want me, or to make up songs about why I am so fat and how much food I eat. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO HURT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING THIS BADLY.

My throat constricts. The neck brace feels as if it's shrinking and cutting off my esophagus. I reach up and cover the words with my hand and the web site dissolves.
I want to go.
Now.”
― Julie Anne Peters, By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

“Nobody taught me to be like this. I was born this way. Since I opened my eyes to the world, I have never slept with a man. Never. Just imagine what purity. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

[2000]”
― Chavela Vargas

“To show his nervousness was not shameful; only to admit it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

“Midland City had a goddess of discord all its own. This was a goddess who could not dance, would not dance, and hated everybody at the high school. She would like to claw away her face, she told us, so that people would stop seeing things in it that had nothing to do with what she was like inside. She was ready to die at any time, she said, because what men and boys thought about her and tried to do to her made her so ashamed. One of the first things she was going to do when she got to heaven, she said, was to ask somebody what was written on her face and why had it been put there.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Deadeye Dick

“Loss of social standing is an ever-present threat for individuals whose social acceptance is based on behavioral traits rather than unconditional human value.”
― Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America

“[W]hen people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved with strangers”
― Anton Chekhov, The Portable Chekhov

“But sometimes shame is a more powerful engine than rage. Like rage, it burns hot; and like rage it tends to consume its own furnace.”
― Jonathan Maberry, Dust & Decay

“Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.”
― A.J. Liebling, Mollie and Other War Pieces

“If we keep our heads down, either out of defeat or loss or shame or tiredness... whatever the reason, we are going to miss the beautiful sun (and Son) that is right there in front of us, shining its warmth on our faces and our souls!”
― Mary Beth Chapman, Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope

“The shame of living extends its tentacles around my dreams.”
― Anne de Gandt

“There is no shame in not knowing your history, the shame lies in not finding out.”
― Habeeb Akande

“No one tape her deepest gifts through shame, guilt or anger. In fact, if you come from obligation, others smell the sadness in your blood and they will run the other way,”
― Tama Kieves, Inspired and Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in your life's work

“Fool me once, shame on you
fool me twice, shame on me
fool me thrice, I'm gonna get the frying pan!”
― Anthony Liccione