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Shame Quotes

Sugar cane reach up to GodAnd every baby cryingShame the blanket of my nightAnd all my days are dyin...

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Picture of Maya Angelou
Maya AngelouThe Complete Collected Poems

A man must not be without shame, for the shame of being without shame is shamelessness indeed.

I'm disappointed in myself. In my life. All my life, everything I tried, I only got halfway there. Y...

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Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since ...

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As a society, our decision to heap shame and contempt upon those who struggle and fail in a system d...

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Picture of Michelle Alexander
Michelle AlexanderThe New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

... for when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but ne...

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The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.

If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin H...

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In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.'What is it then?'It is the only way a powe...

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When you find yourself looking ridiculous, reasoning isn't worth a damn.

Picture of Osamu Dazai
Osamu DazaiBlue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy

Do no be ashamed to make a temporary withdrawal from the field if you see that your enemy is stronge...

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Picture of Paulo Coelho
Paulo CoelhoWarrior of the Light

Do not be ashamed to make a temporary withdrawal from the field if you see that your enemy is strong...

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Picture of Paulo Coelho
Paulo CoelhoWarrior of the Light

The woman I loved died because I did not love her enough - what greater sin is there than that?"(Unc...

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Picture of Peter S. Beagle
Peter S. BeagleWe Never Talk about My Brother

It was a shameful thing that she had nothing of which to be ashamed.

I count him lost who is lost to shame.

Look: the trees exist; the houseswe dwell in stand there stalwartly. Only wepass by it all, like a ...

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Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic t...

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Picture of Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. HeinleinStranger in a Strange Land

I am not ashamed that I was once a vacuum-cleaner salesman, only that I was a *good* vacuum-cleaner ...

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By changing our history and our memory, they try to erase all our shame.

Picture of Ruth Ozeki
Ruth OzekiA Tale for the Time Being

You can't take credit for your talents, but it matters that you use them. You can't really be blamed...

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Many a man has been ashamed of his wicked attempts, when he has been repulsed, that would never have...

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But yester-night I prayed aloud In anguish and in agony, Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shap...

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yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful thingsand your tongue were not concocting some evil to...

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I'm dying from about ninety-nine kinds of shame

Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,Tem...

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It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame ...

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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.

Picture of Stephen King
Stephen KingOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Probably one or two moments in your whole life you will hear a dark whispering spirit, a voice comin...

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Picture of Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk KiddThe Secret Life of Bees

There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruct...

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I felt Mr Willard had deserted me. I thought he must have planned it all along, but Buddy said No, h...

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To reprove a harm-doer, put him to shame by doing a good deed in return.

Think wisely before you exercise an action. Having done so however, never look back and regret. That...

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They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy...

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God puzzled her and she was too ashamed of Him to say so.

If people try to judge you or shame you for doing safe, consensual things that make you happy, I can...

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Picture of Tucker Max
Tucker MaxAssholes Finish First

It was easy to share when there was enough, even barely enough, to go round. But when there was not ...

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Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.

Millions cheer the warriorspilling blood across the ringwhile the one who stands for peaceis ridicul...

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A
AberjhaniSongs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player

This is my real bed-rock objection to the eastern systems. They decry all manly virtue as dangerous ...

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Picture of Aleister Crowley
Aleister CrowleyAleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.

I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effec...

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Picture of Alison Bechdel
Alison BechdelFun Home: A Family Tragicomic

The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, and the fourth f...

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Why does shame and self-loathing become cruelty to the innocent ?

Ivanov: No, my clever young thing, it's not a question of romance. I say as before God that I will e...

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[W]hen people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved ...

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Picture of Anton Chekhov
Anton ChekhovThe Portable Chekhov

Shame is an ornament to the young a disgrace to the old.

Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we shrink from the disgrace itself and not...

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Picture of Aristotle
AristotleThe Rhetoric & The Poetics of Aristotle

At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and ...

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I understood that no one could have lobbed such a stinging wad of shame out into the world without h...

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Picture of Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara EhrenreichLiving with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is de...

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Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading thro...

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At the exact time that our society embraces shaming, blaming, judgment, and rejection, it also holds...

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It is easy to see how quickly expectations become layered, competitive and conflicting. This is how ...

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You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.

In fact, all of us are very susceptible to having our humiliating experiences turn to shame, especia...

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If we are going to find our way out of shame and back to each other, vulnerability is the path and c...

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Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask oursel...

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One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because... we percei...

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Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors.

Women most often experience shame as a web of layered, conflicting, and competing social-community e...

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I think we can all agree that feeling shame is an incredibly painful experience. What we often don't...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't surv...

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Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordina...

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Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

...research tells us that we judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame, especially picki...

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Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

When shame becomes a management style, engagement dies. When failure is not an option we can forget ...

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Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

There is a quiet transformation happening that is moving us from 'turning on each other' to 'turning...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.

Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

Knowing what I do now, I think about shame and worthiness in this way: 'It's the album, not the pict...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownDaring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live

The biggest potential for helping us overcome shame is this: We are “those people.” The truth is…we ...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownI Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough"

When we are experience shame we are often thrown into crisis mode...In this mode, the neocortex is b...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownI Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others.

Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownI Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, ...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownI Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownI Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

To know shame is to be human. And to have the capacity for empathy is also to be human.

Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownThe Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known,...

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Brené BrownThe Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If ...

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Picture of Brené Brown
Brené BrownThe Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I felt ashamed.""But of what? Psyche, they hadn't stripped you naked or anything?""No, no, Maia. Ash...

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Picture of C. S. Lewis
C. S. LewisTill We Have Faces

One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering ...

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it is so dark now with the sadness ofpeoplethey were tricked, they were taught to expect theultimate...

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Picture of Charles Bukowski
Charles BukowskiYou Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of eart...

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Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man...

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Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of eart...

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Picture of Charles Dickens
Charles DickensGreat Expectations

The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens...

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If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitous man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, tho...

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I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of ...

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Humiliation is humiliation only when you choose to suffer.

Many veterans feel guilty because they lived while others died. Some feel ashamed because they didn’...

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People generally don’t suffer high rates of PTSD after natural disasters. Instead, people suffer fro...

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The victims of PTSD often feel morally tainted by their experiences, unable to recover confidence in...

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You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, ...

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Shergahn and friend lay like poleaxed steers, and the Daranfelian's greasy hair was thick with potat...

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We live in a world of disposable memory, nothing's built to last, not even shame.

I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.

The shame that tormented me was all the more corrosive for having no very clear origin: I didn't kno...

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Strong sun, that bleachThe curtains of my room, can you not renderColourless this dress I wear?—This...

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Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private r...

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